Bombardier’s board of directors issued authority to the company’s aerospace division to formally offer its proposed C Series airliner to potential customers. Bombardier Aerospace new commercial aircraft president Gary Scott told AIN that he now needs at least one, if not two, “high quality” customers for between 50 and 100 airplanes to gain launch approval from the board. Scott said launch would have to occur this year to meet a 2013 entry-into-service target.

On the industrial front, Bombardier Aerospace president Pierre Beaudoin sparked a new controversy when he alluded to the possibility that the company might shift major assembly work from Canada and perhaps Northern Ireland to the U.S. in an effort to take advantage of the weak U.S. dollar. Financial aid commitments from the Canadian, Quebec provincial and British governments hinged on cockpit work and final assembly in Mirabel, Quebec, and wing assembly in Belfast.