Another truss fell from Fairchild Dornier’s tenuous financial footing last month, as potential suitor Bombardier Aerospace declared that it no longer harbored any interest in investing in the foundering 728 and 928 programs. The timing of the decision came as a surprise, given Bombardier president and CEO Robert Brown’s prior indications that the company’s commercial analysis would last until at least late this month. At press time Bombardier officials had yet to explain the reasons behind the abrupt nature of the announcement, saying only that “after five weeks of discussions with customers, suppliers and all related stakeholders, we quickly came to the conclusion that these programs would not produce returns in line with our requirements.”
Released on June 18, the announcement came on the same day representatives for some 400 creditors of Fairchild Dornier’s two U.S. subsidiaries planned to meet at the U.S. Trustees’ Office in Alexandria, Va., in advance of the companies’ Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. On May 20 Fairchild Dornier Corp. and Dornier Aviation North America each consented to a Chapter 7 liquidation petition filed on behalf of 28 former employees and asked to convert their cases to Chapter 11 reorganization.
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