Bombardier’s Continental is making strong headway into the Middle Eastern market, according to spokesman Leo Knaapen. Total orders have now risen to 120, in addition to those designated for Bombardier’s own fractional ownership programme – Flexjets.

“Within the Middle East (where charter is really starting to assert itself) there’s been a great deal of interest for using the Continental in the market. For example, our partner Execujet has the first charter licence in Dubai, so the aircraft will do well there,” he said.

Predictably the bulk of the interest has come from North America and Europe. Said Knaapen: “The Continental is ideally suited for a fractional ownership application and this is what we had in mind when designing it. This is an aircraft where we have built in maintainability, a very rugged design and used proven systems to enhance its reliability and dispatchability.”

We recently reported the first test flight of a Continental fitted with a full interior. Knaapen said: “The first flight went very well on serial number 20,004, our fourth flight test aircraft. It has made several flights since then, so it’s blended right in with its three sisters. So far the 20,004 has done everything we wanted it to do and there have been no hiccups. Things have been running along very smoothly.”

Bombardier feels it’s still on target for third quarter 2002 FAA certification, which will be quickly followed by the European JAA certification. “Clearly there is still a lot of flying ahead of us, but the fifth aircraft will join the test flight programme as scheduled a little bit later this summer. We remain optimistic that we’ll be where we want to be by the end of this year,” he said. Bombardier is feeding information out of the flight test programme for the simulator, currently under development.

“The aircraft is actually scheduled to enter service around the beginning of next year, although green deliveries will start later this year. With that in mind, clearly we have identified the ground support requirements. We’ve been working very closely with Transport Canada, the FAA and the JAA to produce the maintenance manual and the general syllabus is well advanced,” said Knaapen. \r

And for any prospective clients wishing to add their names to the order books, Knaapen said: “If someone puts in a delivery today, we’re looking at a delivery date of around 2005/6.”