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Bombardier to Stop Making Iconic Learjet to Drive Up Profit

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Bombardier Inc. will stop making Learjet aircraft and cut 1,600 jobs as part of a wide-ranging plan to boost profitability and reduce costs. (www.bloomberg.com) More...

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snow
James Cox 12
Sad day indeed, Lears are the real hot rods of corporate aviation.
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RichardIsbell
Richard Isbell -6
No, no they aren’t. Too slow to be the fastest, has bad runway numbers,poorly thought out cabin, cockpit and other aspects. High maintenance costs and handles like a dump truck.
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darjr26
darjr26 10
It has never made sense to me, when a company becomes profitable by making a good product, and then spends that money to acquire other companies rather than put those profits back into their existing business. In many cases the original products that built the company start to be ignored while management turns their attention to the acquired businesses. Boeing and GE are prime examples of this. Now it looks like Bombardier is having the same problem. They run up tremendous debt buying these companies or product lines and later have to sell them off, or close them, when they realize how difficult it is to manage such a diverse company.
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williambaker08
william baker 10
I think Bombardier has bigger issues going on at hand that they dont want to tell people about. First they sold the C200 series then the CRJ series and now they are dropping Learjet?? How much longer are they going to survive???
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Viperguy46
Jesse Carroll 3
Personal Water Crafts! The best made in Mexico!
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Zigarten
Grd Newell 1
Completely different company
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mduell
Mark Duell 9
They sold the Dash 8 too.

I think they can be viable for quite a while with the Challenger 300 and Global series, both are very competitive. Challenger 600 is kind of a unique position (short legs for its large cabin diameter), not sure what the future holds.
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williampickett75
William L. Pickett Jr. 2
They even stopped production of Evinrude outboard motors
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paulgilpin1953
paul gilpin -1
they should have stuck with snowmobiles. they have been an albatross to the canadian taxpayer for half a century.
what's next?
sell off quebec?
in the end, i am surprised learjet has lasted this long. their history has been written in mis-management and corporate greed. they must have some good labor/worker sources to last this long in spite of theirselves.
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azuresc
Lanny Word 14
As with so many companies that go on buying sprees to fake growth, think GE or Honeywell, you can only take on so much debt before it becomes crippling. These are usually caused by executive incentive packages that reward C suite management for growth, usually ignoring the debt loads being taken on. Sadly, Learjet should have been left to die years ago. It hasn’t really been competitive for decades, only given a slight lead cost per mile in an industry that doesn’t value that like commercial aviation. It will be sad to see them go nonetheless.
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bbabis
bbabis 6
Its main competition in the market are mostly single pilot capable aircraft. Learjet tried to get the first model 23 single pilot certified, failed, and never tried again. Even though it gave a lot of pilots their first jet experience, paying for that second seat to be occupied every time the aircraft moved hurt its cost competitiveness. I don't know if I'll ever use my LR-JET type again, but I will say that the Lear 24D was the closest thing I've ever flown to a fighter. RIP...Learjet.
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PhotoEdge
Rob Edgcumbe 4
Interesting how the choice of headline makes a difference. Drive up profit could equally be stem losses. The Lear 85 went away when it became apparent that the price you could sell them for would never cover the cost of developing a modern airframe. At that point, it was just a question of when not enough people would stick with the 70/75 and that time has sadly come. Developing modern jets is expensive and is fine at the higher end of the market but at this end, it is a tough job.
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patpylot
patrick baker 6
bombardier has been shakeing and quaking for a while here, divesting formerly profitable lines. They used to make a diverse line of goods, not so much anymore. Somebody will take a spin-off of LearJet.
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RichardIsbell
Richard Isbell 1
No one wants Lear. Bombardier has been trying to sell them for years.
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BillOverdue
Bill Overdue 3
Sad indeed, but not surprising at all ...
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kevinkeswick
Kevin Keswick 3
Sad news. The Learjet was truly iconic and for a long time synonymous with "Private Jet" and although not the largest or most luxurious it was one of the sexiest - if not the sexiest!

I would not be surprised if another competitor picks up the company if only to secure the brand-name.
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bbabis
bbabis 2
agreed. I think there is an opportunity there, since the media thinks everything that is not a Piper cub or airliner is a Lear Jet.
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jbsimms
James Simms 2
Guess they’ll have to change the rear quarter panel of NASCAR’s Ben Rhodes truck as it says Bombardier Learjet 25

Bill Lear (RIP) weeps
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CHBHA
CB HARDY 2
Where will I go to get the oil changed in my '10'?
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philmarinmuracciole
Philippe MARIN MURACCIOLE 3
A sad fate for a 50's Swiss wing concept...!
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snow
James Cox 2
They started using an entirely new wing design in 1997 with the release of the 45 model, which was the first Lear developed by Bombardier.
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schwaigerwoodworks
Barry Schwaiger 1
I wouldn't be surprised if the service and parts business for LearJet was more attractive to Bombardier than making new aircraft that people didn't really want. Imagine how expensive these parts will get over time when they don't have to be concerned about goodwill of the brand for new aircraft sales. This may not be a complete picture here but don't you know there is a backstory here much different than what they would communicate.
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darjr26
darjr26 1
Does anyone know how to delete a comment?
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darjr26
darjr26 1
Lear 25s liked two things, runways and jet fuel. They used a lot of both.
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bbabis
bbabis 1
The 24dI I flew did not need much runway. It had the Mark II wing and it literally blew itself off the runway. If you did a rolling takeoff and eased the power up, you did not reach takeoff power before she was off in 1500' or less and climbing at an ungodly angle if you did not reduce power right after gear up. My Vapp and Vref were less than I currently use in the CJ. The only issue was that the fuel flow was the same during taxi as it was at FL450 doing 450 kts. Every minute on the ground was a minute you could not spend at altitude. That's why Lear drivers wanted to get going. It was best to get her off the ground ASAP and let'r eat in the air. You flew at redline all the time, climb, cruise, and descent. I usually leveled at FL450 still climbing over 2000 fpm. I miss it and will always love the Lear.
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darjr26
darjr26 1
Yes the wing modification was a big improvement but if you had the original wing and were sitting in Denver on a hot day you weren’t going anywhere. Now if you really did fly the LR24 answer this riddle. In the late 70’s what was the worst thing a controller could say to a Lear pilot?
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bbabis
bbabis 2
The biggest thing that pissed me off was ATC telling us to level off a 1000' below an aircraft 20 miles in front of us when we're climbing like a bat out of hell. ATC had no idea of our climb rate. Sometimes they would ask us how fast we were climbing and all we could say was. "we don't know, the VSI is pegged up." One time, level at 240 and redline, the controller asked how soon we could be out of 310 if he let us climb. We said 1 minute and he said, "prove it." We made it with time to spare and he said he would have to file that one away for future reference . I sure miss that performance.
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darjr26
darjr26 1
Last thing you wanted to hear from a controller...”you’re following a Citation “. Always got a kick out of that.
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darjr26
darjr26 -1
Did it have a go fast switch?
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bbabis
bbabis 1
No. I heard a lot about that switch but never wished to go there. There was no doubt that it could go higher, faster, farther, but we operated it within its envelope.
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darjr26
darjr26 1
I hear you. With good training and following SOPs it was a great airplane. One of the most significant aircraft ever made. I hope you have lots of good memories from flying it.
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MikeMohle
Mike Mohle 0
Great reporting! All models?
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punkrawk78
Silent Bob 5
There is/was only one model left, the 70/75 which is just cosmetic and some technology updates to the 40/45. Still great airplanes, just not competitive price-wise with offerings from Cessna and Embraer.
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MikeMohle
Mike Mohle 1
Thanks. When I did not get typed in the 45 I kind of lost interest!
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RichardIsbell
Richard Isbell 1
In my experience it isn’t a great plane. Not by any metric.
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punkrawk78
Silent Bob 5
You must've had a really bad experience! I flew it for just shy of 10 years, and while my back is still recovering I loved flying it. It was well built, Part 25 certified vs Part 23 like a lot of competitors so the systems redundancy and stuff was nice. The runway performance wasn't the best but the dual mains and robust brakes meant stopping was never an issue even when wet/contaminated and I don't recall ever being brake energy limited like the 60. If you flew it at FL430 or 450 the fuel burn was relatively low if you flew it at .78 vs trying to max it out at .80, and if you slowed to LRC was still .75 or .76 so you could extend the range a bit. I didn't spend a lot of time riding in the back but seated I thought it was comfortable though not overly spacious. You don't need a stand up cabin when the designed mission profile is under 2 hour legs. It had its quirks but no major issues with reliability. I will say the early 45s with -AR engines and no APU made life a little less comfortable, so being stuck on one of those would definitely skew the metric.
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RichardIsbell
Richard Isbell 2
Range: ...I cant make Dallas to San Jose CR with reserves. ( the Excel can)

Performance: It has terrible runway numbers on shorter or Hot/High. We landed at PDK with 3 passengers the long runway was closed because of a incident. We couldn't leave for 5 hours because we needed that runway for numbers. My boss watched all those Citations leaving on the other runway.

Speed?...speed to a door to door thing and if the plane has to land 30 minutes away because it wont make runway numbers it isn't actually fast. (btw the Citation X is much faster, has better runway numbers, much, much longer range and the maintenance costs are about the same.

Maintenance: Five $15,000 PDPs in 5 years, $280K on a gear 8 year, $10 K each for the crappy little hell hole cooling fans, a APU that shuts down in high ambient heat conditions. Who the hell designs a toilet that needs a set of adapters and has a macerator pump?....and why did they put BOTH the fresh water pump and the macerator in with the Corrosive crap instead of somewhere else? Why put the Brake control box on the inside aft bulkhead, while not giving you a way to remove it without disassembling the Lav?

Pilots seats that are designed by a sadist. The coffee pot is giant and at the same time useless. Why make the ice drawers only drain while power is on the plane?...heck why not use a manual drain valve like Cessna does? Why put the drain mast in front of the taxi lights?. The location causes ice on the belly that breaks off in flight and shatters the $3000 lenses on said lights.

Lets add insult to injury and say that the service centers have a terrible reputation.

Bombardier failed because unlike Cessna they never listen to their customers.
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RichardIsbell
Richard Isbell -3
Smh, that this poorly designed aircraft lasted this long is the amazing part.
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sparkie624
sparkie624 -3
Another Related Article: https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/bombardier-to-end-learjet-production-cut-1600-jobs
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