Story ID: 662BombardierNBAA12NM.doc
Bombardier Moves To Upgrade Service, Training
By: Mark Huber
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Word Count: 452
Bombardier is moving to upgrade its customer product support and training options. To that end, the company announced a major expansion of its service capabilities, including deployment of a fleet of mobile response trucks and three new regional support offices co-located with Bombardier factory-owned maintenance facilities in Tucson, Hartford and Fort Lauderdale.

The trucks and regional offices will be linked 24/7 with Bombardier customer support centers in Montreal and Wichita, all eight Bombardier factory-owned commercial and business service centers in the U.S. and deployed customer liaison pilots, customer support account managers and field service representatives. The trucks and their crews will operate from Van Nuys, Seattle, Denver, Chicago, Atlanta, Hartford and Fort Lauderdale. Each truck features state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment and a variety of maintenance equipment.

Bombardier is establishing more regional service offices worldwide. The company recently opened an office for commercial aircraft in Munich and for business aircraft at Farnborough. It also opened an office in Moscow. Other locations include Dubai, Hong Kong, São Paulo, Singapore, Tokyo, Mumbai, Shanghai and Sydney. Bombardier also currently maintains 10 parts depots on five continents, two customer response centers (Wichita and Montreal), 52 authorized service centers and two training centers, and it has trained 1,500 maintenance technicians.

“We really stepped up our game last year,” said Eric Martel, president of Bombardier customer services. Martel said the company now has three main parts distribution hubs in Chicago, Frankfurt and Asia and that it is launching a Smart Parts Preferred program to cover all Learjets, Challengers and Globals with more component coverage. “The really important change we made was to say ‘yes’ to our customers all the time,” he said. “We can always say ‘yes’ if they need help and support from our service centers. That was not always the case in the past.”

Martel said the ongoing strike at Learjet is not having an impact on customers’ ability to get parts in a timely fashion, although he admitted that the company did not stockpile parts in anticipation of a strike. More than 825 members of the International Association of Machinists struck Bombardier Learjet Wichita on October 8. As of yesterday, the company and the union had not resumed negotiations.

Bombardier also announced an expansion of its partnership with CAE, revealing plans to open a new dedicated pilot and maintenance training center in Amsterdam in 2014 for Globals equipped with the Bombardier Vision flight deck. Training will be expanded to other Globals based on demand. CAE’s Amsterdam location already offers training on the Challenger 300 and 604. The new facility will complement CAE’s Burgess Hill facility near London, which offers training for the Learjet 40 and 45, Global Express and Global Express XRS.