(The Canadian Press circulated the following on August 30.)
MONTREAL — Transportation manufacturer Bombardier Inc. is benefiting from the turnaround in the aerospace industry as record aircraft orders have pushed it to boost production and consider bringing back some laid-off employees.
“Today we are talking more about stability in our organization and we’ll see in some cases if we will recall some employees,” Bombardier Aerospace president Pierre Beaudoin said yesterday discussing second quarter results.
The company’s enhanced financial performance sent its stock up 46 cents or 8.03 per cent to $6.19 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
The world’s third-largest airplane manufacturer had completed 874 of 1,330 planned layoffs.
It plans to increase its regional jet production to 50 aircraft this year and 57 in 2009 by augmenting its production rate to one aircraft every four days, from one in five days.
“From there we have to continue to monitor the market and see if there’s a demand to go back to a three-day rate,” Beaudoin said.
The global airplane and rail manufacturer beat market expectations when it reported earnings from operations before special items of five cents per share or US$91 million. That’s up two cents a share from the same period in 2006.
However, Bombardier was in the red when a major non-cash item during the quarter is included.
It booked a second-quarter loss of US$71 million, after a year-ago profit of US$58 million on an expected US$162-million writedown on its investment in the upgrade of the London subway system.
The transportation business has seen its margins increase as it receives new orders from emerging markets such as China, India and Russia.