Bombardier CRJ-700 Certificated by Transport Canada

Bombardier Aerospace was awarded Transport Canada's Aircraft Type Certificate for its new 70-passenger CRJ-700 regional jet. Type Certification was granted Friday, December 22, 2000.

Type recommendation from Europe's Joint Airworthiness Authorities (JAA) and Type Approval from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are expected in the near future.

"The CRJ-700 meets its published performance data established at program launch in 1997," said John Holding, executive vice-president, engineering and product development at Bombardier Aerospace, "and certification came within the schedule that was set at program launch."

The CRJ-700 will enter airline service with French regional carrier Brit Air flying for Air France in the first quarter of 2001, and will be the first of the new 70-seat-class airliners in the market.

Brit Air, the CRJ-700 launch customer, ordered four aircraft in January of 1997. Brit Air has since increased its firm orders to 12. .

The CRJ-700 program has logged 174 firm orders from American Eagle (25), Atlantic Southeast Airlines (12), Brit Air (12), Comair (20), Delta Connection (25), GECAS Leasing (25), Horizon Air (30), Lufthansa (20) and Maersk Air (5).