Bombardier —
Up in the Air

(Aviation) Late last year, the Montréal-based aerospace firm Bombardier delivered the first of its brand-new Global 8000 jets. This may not sound like momentous news—after all, aviation aficionados will know that the Global series has been taking to the skies for over a quarter of a century now. However, the Global 8000 isn’t just any business jet. With a top speed of Mach 0.95, it’s the fastest civilian plane since the Concorde. It’s a true feat of engineering—and could well be a game-changer for both Bombardier and the world business jet market.

The Global 8000 is the latest chapter in the company’s long and occasionally turbulent history. L’Auto-Neige Bombardier Limitée was founded in 1942 by Joseph-Armand Bombardier, an engineer who began by building snowmobiles to enable people and goods to move efficiently across the snow-covered landscapes of rural Québec. However, after the founder’s son-in-law, Laurent Beaudoin, took over the company in 1966, it quickly became a global behemoth. By the late 1980s, thanks in part to several strategic acquisitions, Bombardier was one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of trains, planes, and even boats.

However, the company’s recent history has been checkered. Bombardier fell on tougher times in the 2010s and, in 2015, a restructuring plan was developed to grapple with its debts and strengthen its balance sheet. Today, Bombardier is coming out of a six-year period of near-total transformation. During this time, it has sold off divisions that had long proved burdensome, such as the CRJ regional jet division, which was sold to Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and its rail division, which was sold to the French giant Alstom.

Now, in 2026, Bombardier is deep into a new chapter—as a leaner enterprise, it is exclusively focused on designing, building, and servicing business jets. That renewed focus has been hugely successful; Bombardier’s share price is up around 700% since June 2020. The future looks bright, thanks in part to the company’s burgeoning services business, but also the steady and persistent growth of private aviation.

Ahead of the Global 8000’s European launch event in December 2025, Maison Ë sat down at The Peninsula London with Bombardier CEO and President, Éric Martel, alongside Ève Laurier, the company’s Vice President of Communications, Marketing and Public Affairs.

Over an elegant afternoon tea, we discussed the firm’s dramatic turnaround, how luxury tastes are changing, and Bombardier’s commitment to lower-carbon flight.

MAISON Ë Éric, you were appointed President and CEO of Bombardier in 2020, but you’d previously been at the company for 13 years, from 2002 until 2015. Talk us through how the company had changed in the five years that you were away.

ÉRIC MARTEL Previously, the company had multiple divisions. We had a significant train division, which was about half of the company at one point, and of course, the aerospace division, which was made up of commercial planes and private jets. I left for five years, and the company changed quite a bit. Clearly, there was some restructuring to be done, and I came back to manage that.

This is a company that has always been close to my heart, a company that’s always developed fantastic products. But it was a difficult task in the beginning, because the company was challenged at the time, financially, and we needed to sort it out. But here we are today, with a beautiful company focused on private aviation.

M.Ë You returned just as the Covid-19 pandemic struck. What was that like?

E.M. My first day on the job was April 6, 2020. That morning, my CFO walked into my office and said: “We have 49 manufacturing facilities. They’ve all shut down.” That’s not a good place for a manufacturing company. I said, “Let’s not panic. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. Let’s see in a couple of months.”

Luckily—and sometimes you need a bit of luck—during the summer of 2020, we realized that the pandemic was going to be an accelerator for private aviation. Commercial planes were grounded, especially in the US, but Americans wanted to move around. They discovered private aviation and they realized all the benefits: they didn’t have to wear a mask with 300 other people onboard; they could show up just 15 minutes before their flight; and they didn’t need to make connections, they could fly straight to their destination.

A lot of people who didn’t have enough money to buy a complete plane started buying hours. And you know what? We built a backlog. That shift in demand has been going on ever since.

M.Ë What have been some of the bigger shifts that you’ve witnessed over the past five years in the private jet industry?

E.M. Clearly, fleet operators—companies that allow people to buy hours or buy a share of a plane, such as NetJets, Flexjet, and VistaJet—have seen a big transformation. There’s been a 60% increase in the number of hours they are flying today, compared to pre-Covid. I have hundreds of planes with these companies, and the segment keeps growing. Those people who discovered private aviation during Covid, they didn’t go back to flying commercial.

I also think people are flying bigger planes than before. This is why we made a bullish decision to focus on the medium segment, which is our Challenger product, and our large and ultra-long-range segments, which are our Global platforms.

We stopped producing the Learjet, which was heartbreaking because it was an iconic brand. There are thousands of them still flying, and we’re still maintaining those, but we realized that people were going to fly bigger planes—they want to have more space and feel more comfortable on the plane—and fly longer range.

M.Ë How else are consumer demands changing? What are your customers asking for?

E.M. People are demanding, and rightly so. We focus a lot on cabin comfort. We’re always trying to replicate the same experience, the same comfort, that you have at home or at the office. A jet is a productivity tool, it’s not just a luxury.

Yes, our customers go on vacation once or twice a year, like everybody, but most of the time, they’re people with global businesses who need to fly internationally—to be in London one day, New York the next, and in Singapore two days later. They need comfort and capability onboard.

Let’s talk, for instance, about cabin pressure. On the Global 8000, we have the lowest cabin pressure of any plane. On a long-distance commercial flight, the cabin pressure is at about 6,000–7,000 feet. That’s why you feel so tired at the end. With the Global 8000, you fly at 2,691 feet, so you feel rested.

M.Ë Ève, how do you see luxury tastes changing? And how does that influence your marketing and communications for the brand?

ÈVE LAURIER A luxury brand is not just about the product; it’s about how you service that product, how you engage with the people buying the product, and the people around the people buying the product.

In aviation and business aviation, people are hyper-focused on the product. We’ve completely switched that.

We talk a lot more about who we are, what we do, and how the customer experience remains consistent at every touchpoint. As a company, we’re very different from the other companies out there that are hyper-focused on product features. To me, that’s not the definition of luxury.

M.Ë You recently launched a new brand identity (designed in collaboration with the consultancy Lippincott). Why was it necessary, and what was the purpose behind the new identity?

E.L. Éric gave me the best gift of my professional life—and also the biggest challenge—when he said he felt the timing was right [to do a rebrand]. First, though, he said: “Don’t do anything. Start by listening, start with the employees.”

So that’s what I did. I went and listened to our employees. They said, “I don’t really want to go out wearing a baseball cap with the Bombardier logo.” The cap, however, is important, because—like a coffee mug or a T-shirt—it’s something that people walk around with. Now, we’re running out. Our employees are eager to wear the caps, because they recognize themselves in the final product.

M.Ë Turning to the Global 8000, Éric, talk us through how you believe this jet is going to change the company’s future and the global business jet market.

E.M. It is important for us to keep our position of leadership. We’ve already spoken about cabin pressure, which is very important for people’s comfort. The Global 8000 is also the fastest plane since the Concorde, with a top speed of Mach 0.95.

As I mentioned, this is a productivity tool for some people, so if they can gain 30 minutes in-flight, that might make the difference between being on time for a meeting or not. The noise level is also the lowest, which is important, because you want to be in a quiet place for sleeping, working, and meetings on Zoom. Finally, the world, unfortunately, has become more complex over the past few years with geopolitical tensions. There are some countries we cannot fly over anymore, so you have to fly around them, and for that you need more range. The 8000 is a solution.

M.Ë Looking to the future, what technological breakthroughs are you working hardest on?

E.M. Right now, we’re investing most of it in reducing carbon emissions. Our EcoJet project is part of that. We’ve completely changed the shape of the airplane; it has a blended wing; it looks very different.

It’s exciting, because without touching the engines and just by changing the shape of the aircraft, you can achieve close to 20% less fuel consumption. We’re currently working with a number of universities in Canada to make a bigger EcoJet, and the results look very promising.

M.Ë Talk to me about the services side of your business. What is it, and where do you see the future of that arm of Bombardier?

E.M. It’s very similar to your car. If you have a car, then once a year, you need to do some inspections and maintenance. Planes are very similar—people bring us their planes if they have a problem, or they come for planned maintenance.

We created a very simple strategy: we need to be present. Previously, we were relying on third parties to do maintenance on our product, especially out of North America. We have just built a beautiful facility in the US, where we service hundreds and hundreds of planes every year.

We also have one in Berlin, one in Australia, and a huge site—the biggest service center for private aviation in APAC—in Singapore. We’ve grown our footprint by something like a million square feet over the past five years. That’s how we’ve been able to grow the services business from about US$1 billion to more than US$2 billion. And we foresee that we can be, in five years’ time, getting close to US$3.5 to 4 billion. It’s a big focus over the next few years.

M.Ë Which markets are you particularly focusing on in 2026? Is there still room to grow in North America, which makes up around three-quarters of the global private jet market?

E.M. North America is the most mature market. There are 16,000 planes in business aviation in North America—so even if it doesn’t grow, just the replacement of those planes is a market on its own. But of course, the fastest-growing markets right now, in terms of adding new planes, are APAC and the Middle East.

E.L. One of the other things we’re looking at is the next generation, because the wealth transfer that is on its way is going to be historical. And there are going to be a lot of women receiving a lot of wealth in the next generation too.

We’re not just talking to potential clients today, but really looking at who the clients of tomorrow are—where are they and how do we speak to them? My job is to look ahead, to start studying that generation, and to speak with them. I’m not from that generation, so I need to talk to our clients, meet their kids, and understand what’s going to be important to them. Their expectations of a luxury company are not the same as their parents’ expectations. It’s a different world.