12 NOV 2018: Six months ago Bombardier announced it was selling its aircraft’s flight and technical training division to CAE.  Last week Bombardier reported that it would be selling the Q400 program to Longview Aviation Capital.  In addition the company would be laying off 5,000 workers, including 500 in Ontario and 2,500 in Quebec, as part of a restructuring plan that cuts more than 12 percent of its Canadian positions.

David Curtis is the CEO of Longview Aviation Capital and pledges to keep all manufacturing already in Canada within the country.

The Q400 series is a ‘natural fit’ for Longview Aviation Capital, he said in an interview. “We like to say, ‘It’s the same colour of paint.’ In other words, the same production processes.”

The Q400 program sold for US $300 ($396) million.

Bombardier manufactures roughly 28 to 30 Q400 aircraft annually at its Downsview property in Toronto, located in the North York district of Toronto. It has owned the site since the early 1990s and spans around 370 acres.

Under the terms of the agreement, Bombardier will lease the property until 2021, with a two-year extension option.

“There’s no question, the writing’s on the wall- we’ve go to move,” Curtis said, but they would “absolutely not” leave Canadian soil. “We wouldn’t outsource it.”

Longview, whose subsidiary Viking Air Ltd. makes turboprop aircraft such as the Twin Otter, intends to maintain supply chains for the Q400 series that currently stretch from China to Ireland to Mexico, he added.

The deal, which is slated to close in the second half of 2019, positions Longview to more than triple its annual revenue to $1 billion, Curtis said.

Union and opposition leaders in Quebec spoke out against Mary Ellen McIlmoyle, president of a Unifor local that represents some of the 2,100 workers at Bombardier aerospace wing at Downsview, said her members feel ‘betrayed.’

“During bargaining in April, the company said they were keeping the Q400,” she said. “It was a huge shock when we found they turned around and sold it.”

Workers’ lack of certainty about the Downsview facility, which makes cockpits and wings, among other components- after 2021 is their “biggest concern,” she said.

“Our members are worried about it being moved to BC.”