Planes are assembled at Bombardier's assembly centre in Mississauga, Ont., Dec. 8, 2025.Sammy Kogan/The Canadian Press
Éric Martel came back to Bombardier Inc. BBD-B-T as chief executive officer six years ago and found a once-proud industrial icon run down and still mired in crisis. Now he’s steering it towards a potentially prosperous if unknown tomorrow.
The Montreal-based plane maker on Thursday reported solid annual results that surpassed its previous guidance and, with them, declared a turnaround effort launched in 2021 successfully complete. It introduced a new financial forecast for 2026 that builds on the momentum.
Bombardier’s net income from continuing operations for the year ended Dec. 31 came in at US$975-million, up from US$370-million the year before, while revenue grew 10 per cent to US$9.5-billion. The company delivered 157 jets over the year, 11 more than the year before, and sales for its aircraft maintenance and repair business reached an all-time high.
Free cash flow hit US$1.07-billion for the year, while the backlog of orders not yet fulfilled ballooned 22 per cent to US$17.5-billion. The company, previously saddled with a crippling debt from the simultaneous development of three new aircraft, now has a leverage ratio of 1.9 times net debt to adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). Its available liquidity is US$2.5-billion.
“We have transformed the business, reinforced our competitive position, and established a clear and disciplined track record for growth,” Mr. Martel said in a statement accompanying the results. “The future looks bright.”
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By many measures, it’s an epic recovery for a company that was mulling a bankruptcy protection filing only a decade ago. To survive, Bombardier received a financial lifeline from the government of Quebec and an investment from pension fund Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. It then shrunk, selling its train division, turboprop and regional jet units, as well as its flight training business. It also handed the C Series airliner program to Airbus SA.
Mr. Martel plotted a new course focused on a single-product strategy: private jets. Together with chief financial officer Bart Demosky, sales chief Paul Sislian and others, he built up orders, expanded the aftermarket services business and pushed hard into defence. The company is in negotiations with Saab AB about the possibility of building the Swedish company’s Gripen fighter jets in Canada under licence, although a decision on that is in the hands of the Canadian government.
All of those gains could still come undone at the whim of a U.S. President who has proven to be as unpredictable as he is aggressive. The risk now, just as it was a year ago when Donald Trump first threatened Canada with an import tariff of 25 per cent on goods shipped into the United States, is that Bombardier’s comeback is unwound by developments outside its control.
Mr. Trump startled Canada’s aerospace industry late last month with a social media post saying the U.S. is decertifying Bombardier’s Global Express jets and “all Aircraft made in Canada” until Canada approves four specific jet models made by Savannah, Ga.-based plane maker Gulfstream. He also threatened a 50-per-cent import tariff on Canadian aircraft sold into the U.S. if his concerns were not immediately addressed.
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Canadian government officials have been working behind the scenes to defuse the situation, but as of Thursday there was no official word of a resolution. Steven MacKinnon, federal Transport Minister, has said he does “not interfere” in the regulatory certification process while Transport Canada spokesman Hicham Ayoun said the department continues to work with Gulfstream and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration on the licensing.
On a call with reporters Thursday, Mr. Martel said he believed the situation is going to get resolved soon but that Bombardier was not involved. “This is being sorted out as we speak,” he said, calling it a potential misunderstanding between Gulfstream and Transport Canada. “On our side, we’ve been operating normally in the U.S.,” he said.
Bombardier generated about 63 per cent of its revenue from U.S.-based customers in 2023, while assembling and shipping out its planes largely from factories in Canada. Its products remain tariff-free under the Trump administration’s exemption for goods stamped compliant under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Whether that will hold remains to be seen. The U.S. Department of Commerce is now wrapping up a Section 232 investigation into imports of commercial aircraft and related parts to determine if they threaten national security. According to Washington-based lawyers at Cassidy Levy Kent, the department had until Jan. 26 to finish its work and transmit a report to the President.
Meanwhile, the President himself is privately musing about exiting the USMCA pact, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. The trilateral agreement, which underpins trillions of dollars of continental trade, is scheduled for a mandatory review this year.
Mr. Martel said Thursday the risk remains low that the aerospace industry will be the subject of any drastic changes, in part because the U.S. is a major net exporter of aircraft and parts. The U.S. aerospace and defence sector has maintained a positive trade surplus for more than 70 years – the only U.S. manufacturing industry with a positive trade balance, according to the U.S. Aerospace Industries Association.
Any change would also have ramifications throughout the supply chain internationally, the Bombardier CEO said. “We have 2,800 suppliers” in the U.S., Mr. Martel said. “So us being affected by whatever tariff would probably cause more problems in the United States than in Canada in terms of jobs and layoffs.”
The stakes for Quebec are substantial. The province is one of the world’s five biggest aerospace hubs and Bombardier is one of five main manufacturers building there, together with Airbus, Bell Textron Canada, CAE Inc. and Pratt & Whitney Canada.