CEO Alain Bellemare said Bombardier still plans to move forward with an Alabama assembly line, after it escaped duties of nearly 300 percent when it won a bitter trade dispute with Boeing on Friday.
In a surprise ruling, the U.S. International Trade Commission, a government agency, on Friday rejected Boeing’s complaint that it was harmed by Bombardier’s trade practices. Boeing had complained that Montreal-based Bombardier sold its C Series jets, which seat about 100 passengers, to Delta Air Lines below cost and received illegal Canadian government subsidies to prop up the struggling program.
The ITC’s panel voted 4-0 in Bombardier’s favor.
Over nearly a year, the dispute intensified, adding to tensions between the U.S. and Canada over cross-border trade. Last year, the U.S. Commerce Department recommended tariffs of almost 300 percent on the jets, which would make them unaffordable.
In October, European aerospace company Airbus agreed to take a majority stake in the struggling C Series planes and said the aircraft would be made in Mobile, Alabama, where Airbus assembles some of its narrowbody jets.
“We’re committed to creating jobs in the U.S.,” Bellemare told CNBC in an interview, saying he recently met with his Airbus counterpart to discuss the companies’ integration plan. “We’re doing a lot of work in the U.S., and we’re going to be doing more by putting the assembly line in Mobile, Alabama.”
