The CEO of Bombardier said he’s happy with the company’s latest quarterly results and its current path to achieve its goals, thanks to “solid” market conditions that he argues have set the Canadian plane maker up for success.

“We are extremely pleased,” Éric Martel told BNN Bloomberg in a Wednesday television interview. “We had an excellent quarter.”

He made the comments Wednesday after the company reported second-quarter 2023 revenues up eight per cent year-over-year, at $1.7 billion, after delivering 29 planes. Net loss, meanwhile, was $35 million.

Martel said the market has changed but the conditions are right for Bombardier to maintain its target book-to-bill, or ratio of orders to billed deliveries, of one-to-one.

“The market remains extremely solid. It's a different market than what it was a year ago, but it's a market that allows us to sell our planes and maintain the backlog we created over the last two years,” he said. “That's our target.”

FLEET OPERATOR GROWTH

Martel noted that Bombardier has benefited from the good fortunes of fleet operators, which allow partial ownership of jets or other purchase options.

Such companies have been growing in recent years, and Martel explained that the trend puts the jet maker in a good position.

“For Bombardier, because we're dominating that segment of the market with the fleet operators, it is great news,” he said. “Not only (do) these guys need capacity to grow, but they also need to replace some of the airplanes, which puts us in a very solid position.”

DEFENCE CONTRACT TALKS

Martel also addressed the ongoing discussion about the need for Canada to replace aging military aircrafts.

The federal government has said it is weighing options for the multi-billion dollar contract.

Martel said he is “100 per cent sure” his company can deliver on Canada’s military plane needs with made-in-Canada products, noting that Bombardier will need to update new Defence Minister Bill Blair on the topic, after he took on the file last week.

“We would love as proud Canadians to be the ones replacing, with a state-of-the-art new product, the airplanes that are going to be defending our country in the future,” Martel said.

“The only thing we're asking here is for a request for a proposal, we're not asking to get a sole-source. We believe a fair process for the taxpayer will be the right thing to do and Bombardier will definitely participate in that process.”

With files from The Canadian Press