Lessor Palma Holding orders fifth Bombardier Q400 NextGen

Bombardier Commercial Aircraft announced that lessor Palma Holding Limited (“Palma”) has signed a firm purchase agreement to acquire an additional dual-class Q400 NextGen aircraft. Under a joint venture between Palma and Ibdar Bank BSC (“Ibdar”), the firm-ordered aircraft will be leased to RwandAir of Kigali, Rwanda.

“The dual-class-configured Q400 NextGen aircraft presents many exciting business development opportunities for the African region,” said Moulay Omar Alaoui, President, Palma Holding Ltd. „With Ibdar, we became the first lessors worldwide for the aircraft’s dual-class configuration and having already worked together to place four aircraft with another operator in Africa, we are delighted to support RwandAir on its path towards further growth and increased profitability.

“Our first dual-class, 67-seat Q400 NextGen aircraft has been performing extremely well and has fully met our expectations. It has proven to be capable of performing in our environment and flexible in supporting our fleet strategy through its increased capacity – all the while nicely complementing our dual-class CRJ900 NextGen regional jets,” said John Mirenge, Chief Executive Officer, RwandAir. “We are adding another Q400 Next Gen aircraft to our fleet because we know it will be an important and consistent contributor to our bottom line.”

RwandAir currently operates two dual-class Bombardier CRJ900 NextGen regional jets, and with the lease of the aircraft announced today, is adding another Q400 NextGen aircraft to the first one that is already in service.

Bombardier