On Monday at the Farnborough International Air Show in the UK, Bombardier had released the name of a previously unknown customer that had taken up an option to increase its order by three planes – that name was airBaltic and the result is that airBaltic now has 13 CS300 passenger aircraft on order rather than 10 as previously agreed.
The option was taken up back in February 2014, Bombardier said and the three new planes will add “approximately $228m” to the existing $764m price tag, bringing the total close to a billion dollars.
airBaltic retains an additional option on a further seven aircraft.
Commenting the announcement, airBaltic chief executive Martin Gauss said the state-owned company “needs to take advantage of all the available opportunities for growth beyond 2016, and the all-new CS300 airliner continues to be the best fit hence we elected to exercise those available options.”
airBaltic agreed to order 10 CS300 planes from Bombardier in 2012, becoming one of the first airlines to commit to the brand new design.
