Bombardier and General Dynamics Canada Bombardier and General Dynamics have common enmey Boeing. However this new partnership is going to be interesting as what does Saab feel about its partnership with Bombardier. How does military customers currently flying Gulfstream jet based surveillance aircraft feel about having General Dynamics ditching their own sister company aircraft for their main competitors.
The General Dynamics division that is supplying the avionics and hardware is in Canada so it does make a compelling case to buy Canadian. However this strategy can back fire on both General Dynamics and Bombardier. Raytheon, Saab, and BAE might now look at Dassault 10X for their new platform instead of Gulfstream and Bombardier aircraft.
Further the Canadian government which now looks like is compelled to have and open bid will certainly have a requirement for inter airforce commonality and most importantly mid air refueling capabilities. Only Boeing meets this requirement and the mid refueling is a big plus and gives flexibility and unlimited range to the Boeing aircraft.
Boeing is already doing industry offset work so buy in Canada case becomes weak too as value of Boeing deal will be offset by Boeing doing same amount of business with Canadian partners for other contracts.
Will be interesting to see how it plays out. This is an order for 16 aircraft which is significant.