By IAN ROSS
Bombardier Aerospace has temporarily re-activated its mothballed North Bay facility to finish completion of three Canadair water bombers.
Work began in early July with the recall of 20 laid off employees in North Bay to finish off three Canadair 415 aircraft shipped in from Montreal.
Situated in a former air force hangar at Jack Garland Airport, North Bay is Bombardier’s final assembly and delivery point for the 415.
Bombardier spokesman Marc Duchesne says the Montreal-based transportation giant has not found buyers for the aircraft, but they are talking to several potential customers. He could not say how long the workers will be on the job in North Bay and there is no word of further pending orders for more aircraft.
“We’re still working on some contracts, so we may sell some additional airplanes,” says Duchesne. The Saskatchewan government recently purchased some retrofit kits for their older Bombardier water bombers, “so there’s still a market for those aircraft.”
Duchesne says Bombardier does not have a signed lease for the North Bay hangar facility but the company has forwarded a letter of intent to the property’s new landlord, Voyageur Airways, and is confident of signing a formal lease shortly.
The former owner of Bombardier’s hangar, the all-volunteer Air Base Property Corporation (ABPC), divested themselves of the facility earlier this year to Voyageur Airways, a North Bay charter aircraft company, who took over negotiations for the lease.
“The lease we had in place (with Bombardier) was always 12 months out,” says ABPC chairman Dave Butti, “out to 2006 and indefinitely. We released negotiations over to the purchaser. There’s no sense negotiating the lease and binding the new purchaser. Voyageur picked it up and is
now the landlord.”
Voyageur purchased three of the four hangars at the Aerospace Centre site from the non-profit site development corporation which during the mid 1990s saved the former military assets from demolition to promote economic development at the city.
“We’re grateful to have them back,” says North Bay Mayor Vic Fedeli. Fedeli has served as ABPC chairman, and helped lure Bombardier to North Bay in the late 1990s.
“They continue to try to sell product worldwide and we understand they may not begin construction of new aircraft in Montreal until such time as they’ve made some sales. That’s our understanding.”
In 1998, Bombardier Aerospace announced it was moving the final assembly operations of its Canadair 415 program to Ontario to clear the way for the construction and assembly of its new Canadair Regional Jet Series 700 airliner.
North Bay beat out Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie and Ottawa among the finalists for the plant.
All the other Canadair 415 operations including engineering, manufacturing and aircraft subassembly through to marketing, sales, contracts and customer support remain in Montreal.
During its peak period of operation, the North Bay facility employed as many as 80 people.
Fedeli remains hopeful Bombardier will keep a permanent footprint in the city.
“We expect we’ll continue as the final assembly and delivery centre if and when they re-activate the facility in Montreal on a permanent basis.”
