An interior view of a mock-up Bombardier Global 7000 business jet.
An interior view of a mock-up Bombardier Global 7000 business jet.
Amid an ongoing trade dispute with Boeing over its C-Series plane, Canadian firm Bombardier attempted to shift attention to its other aircraft on Sunday, by debuting the Global 7000, the largest jet ever designed for corporate use.
The plane will enter service next year with a list price of almost US$73 million ($103.2m).
It features four living spaces and a permanent crew rest area, and can hold up to 19 passengers.
Bombardier said that it had a healthy order book for the Global 7000 and the aircraft was sold out until 2021.
The plane is the biggest ever made for business travel.
The Global 7000 will be on display at the National Business Aviation Association's flagship industry trade show in Las Vegas between October 10-12.
Bombardier hopes the new jet will play a key role in its five-year turnaround after the company experienced a brush with bankruptcy in 2015.
According to Reuters, analysts expect the aircraft will add US$300m to its operating profit and contribute nearly one-third of Bombardier's targeted US$10b in business jet revenues by 2020.
The plane's launch comes as a separate Bombardier plane, the C-Series, has been caught up in a trade dispute with rival Boeing, which claims the Canadian company sold the C-Series airliners at knock-down prices - a practice known as "trade dumping".
The plane features four living spaces and a permanent crew rest area, and can hold up to 19 passengers.
Boeing argues that the only reason Bombardier was able to sell up to 125 of the aircraft to US carrier Delta at bargain rates was that the company received state subsidies.
The US manufacturer claims that government support for Bombardier - which included about £75m from the UK and US$1b from the Quebec government - was illegal.
The US company alleged Bombardier agreed to sell the C-Series jets for about US$20m each to Delta but claimed the planes cost about US$33m to produce, and it was the state subsidies that allowed it to offer them at what Boeing called "absurdly low" prices.
The wings for Bombardier's C-Series airliners are built in Belfast, where the company is the region's biggest private employer with almost 5,000 staff. Bombardier has said the aircraft's success is "critical" to the future of its Northern Ireland operations.
