My enemy’s enemy

Airbus takes over Bombardier’s “cute little airplane” C Series after Boeing spat

Bombardier’s single-aisle, twinjet C Series small airliner is as popular with passengers as it has been lukewarmly received by airlines, with an all-new cabin, 2-3 configuration and 18-inch wide seats stretching to 19-inch in the middle seat of three making it one of the most pleasant ways to fly.

“It’s a cute little airplane,” said Airbus sales chief John Leahy of the Bombardier C Series in Hamburg last year, when few people would have imagined that the European airframer would take over the Canadian aircraft programme, essentially for free, in a move that shook the world of commercial aviation like few others.