World’s fastest private jets built at $670M plant at Pearson Airport in Mississauga, Ontario
Published March 27, 2024 at 1:26 pm
Bombardier’s private jet-building operations have now been fully moved from Toronto to the company’s massive new plant at Pearson Airport in Mississauga.
The $670-million “state-of-the-art” Global Manufacturing Centre, which has been ramping up to full capacity the past several months, builds several of the world’s fastest and most luxurious business jets offered by the Montreal-based international firm.
The final aircraft produced at the old Downsview plant, a Global 7500, took off for Montreal from that location last Saturday, according to online aviation news and information website FlightGlobal.
That means the company’s assembly operations for its line of Global business jets sold to customers around the world have now completely moved to the 770,000-sq.-ft. Pearson Airport facility, which is expected to host its official inauguration in the near future.
Top Bombardier brass gave an early tour of the new plant to Ontario Premier Doug Ford and other dignitaries back in late January.
A look inside Bombardier’s huge Global Manufacturing Centre at Pearson Airport in Mississauga. (Photo: Bombardier)
Ford described the new plant at the time as “the most advanced business jet-production facility in the world.”
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The Global Manufacturing Centre is the largest standalone structure to be built at Pearson in the last 20 years, airport officials have said.
Some of the world’s fastest and most popular private jets are now rolling off the line there in greater numbers, including the Global 8000 set to begin production in 2025.
Bombardier officials said earlier the company began moving its final assembly plant to Pearson from Downsview last fall.
The older facility was built in the 1960s and most recently housed some 2,000 workers. All of those employees have been brought along to the new Pearson plant, which company officials said earlier will also significantly reduce Bombardier’s industrial and environmental footprint in the area.
A number of new workers will also be hired now that the plant is fully operational in Mississauga.
According to FlightGlobal, the old Downsview site offers an important glimpse into Canadian aerospace history.
The site was home to an airfield back in the late 1920s when De Havilland also launched an operation there. It later hosted a Royal Canadian Air Force base, according to FlightGlobal.
Rendering of the completed plant at Pearson Airport. (Image: Bombardier)
Bombardier makes both Challenger and Global aircraft, renowned for their “cutting-edge innovation, cabin design, performance and reliability,” company officials say, adding Bombardier has a worldwide fleet of some 5,000 aircraft in service.
City of Mississauga officials have said the new plant will strengthen the city’s “world-class aviation sector by continuing its relationship with Mississauga-based companies that provide leading-edge capabilities to support Bombardier’s family of Global business jets.”
The Global Manufacturing Centre is also expected to help rebuild the Airport Employment Zone, which pre-COVID was home to the second-largest concentration of jobs in Canada, according to the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, which runs Pearson.
Bombardier’s Global 7500 business jet will be among the private planes built at Pearson Airport. (Photo: VistaJet)