Bombardier under less pressure to ink deals at air show, says executive

Canada's Bombardier is under less pressure to ink new orders for its CSeries jet at a major European air show next week after receiving orders from Delta and Air Canada, a senior executive said Wednesday. Those two deals for a combined 120 narrowbody planes enabled Bombardier to surpass its own target of 300 CSeries orders by the smaller CS100's entry into service this month. By contrast, the company announced no orders for the jet at the Paris air show in June of last year. Bombardier executives will be attending Britain's Farnborough air show next week, where planemakers regularly publicise new orders. "There was a lot of pressure from the industry looking at this program, because early in the program there was a milestone of 300 firm orders," Bombardier Commercial Aircraft President Fred Cromer said. "We have surpassed that number, so from that standpoint the pressure's off." After securing deals with the two legacy carriers, Cromer said Bombardier would now like an order for the fuel-efficient CSeries from a low-cost airline "to really demonstrate the versatility of the aircraft."<br/>