Bombardier says CSeries on track for certification, committed to plane

[October 14, 2015]  BERLIN (Reuters) - Canada's Bombardier said it is on track to certify its new CSeries CS100 jet by the end of the year, and is 100 percent committed to the program, which has not won a new firm order in over a year.

Bombardier had been in talks with Airbus over an investment in the struggling CSeries program but those discussions ended abruptly last week. Some analysts have since suggested the program could be canceled altogether.

"Let's start with the fact that Bombardier is 100 percent committed to the CSeries, it is coming to the market," Ross Mitchell, vice president of business acquisition at Bombardier, said at the ERA regional airlines conference in Berlin.

Mitchell said Bombardier was in discussions with potential customers in Europe but declined to comment on the timing of any possible orders.

The plane is now entering the final stage of flight testing, with all the high risk testing completed, Mitchell said, adding that puts the first jet on track to be delivered to Lufthansa's Swiss unit in the first half of 2016.

(Reporting by Victoria Bryan; Editing by Kirsti Knolle)

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