Bombardier Says AirBaltic to Buy Up to 20 CSeries Jets

Bombardier Inc. (BBD/B) said Latvian carrier AirBaltic AS signed a letter of intent to buy as many as 20 CSeries jets, the Canadian planemaker’s first entry into the market for narrow-body airliners.

The agreement calls for Riga-based AirBaltic to order 10 of the CS300 model and get purchase rights for 10 more, Bombardier said today in a statement at the Farnborough air show outside London. A firm order for the first 10 planes would be valued at about $764 million, Bombardier said.

Bombardier has struggled for orders in its bid to crack Airbus SAS (EAD) and Boeing Co. (BA)’s airliner-building duopoly, with most purchases at about 10 planes while the competitors sell scores or even hundreds of jets at a time. Bombardier said July 8 it won a conditional order for 15 CSeries planes valued at $1.02 billion from a buyer that asked to remain unidentified.

CSeries orders totaled 138 heading into the Farnborough International Air Show. Montreal-based Bombardier is trying to carve out a market for a plane able to seat 100 to 149 people, the smaller end of the narrow-body aircraft segment.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ed Dufner in Farnborough, England, at edufner@bloomberg.net;

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Benedikt Kammel at bkammel@bloomberg.net; Ed Dufner at edufner@bloomberg.net