Builders of fast, luxurious jets will be part of ‘legacy’ at Pearson Airport in Mississauga, Ontario

Being part of an assembly team that builds some of the fastest and most luxurious business jets on the planet — soon to include “the fastest” — is one way to leave your mark.

That’s part of what Bombardier officials have in mind with their huge new Global Manufacturing Centre at Pearson Airport in Mississauga.

The $670-million “state-of-the-art” final assembly plant takes up some 770,000-sq.-ft. of real estate, making it the largest standalone structure to be built at Pearson Airport in the last 20 years, airport officials have said.

Production of the Montreal-based firm’s line of Global business aircraft has been ramping up to full capacity the past several months at Pearson and now all operations are in Mississauga with the recent final closing of the old Downsview plant.

The new Global Manufacturing Centre “is what I call a legacy for all the employees of Bombardier, especially those at the (Pearson Airport) site,” Stefan Schmidt, senior director, operational excellence at Bombardier, said in a video posted to social media earlier this week.

Stefan Schmidt, senior director, operational excellence at Bombardier.

Schmidt is tasked by the global company to lead the “operations and execution team” at the new Pearson plant.

He added the move of final assembly operations from the previous Downsview site, which opened back in the 1960s, to Mississauga bodes well for the huge company and its thousands of employees now at Pearson.

“This has been a very strategic move for Bombardier in developing a purpose-built factory to allow us to build our Global product line here” at Pearson, Schmidt said, noting it’s “another example of how Bombardier is driving forward to lead the industry.”

Bombardier’s Global 8000 will be the world’s fastest business jet when it rolls off the line starting in 2025. (Photo: Bombardier)

One specific way in which the international firm is driving forward is with the impending production at Pearson of its new flagship Global 8000 aircraft, set to launch in 2025.

At $78 million apiece and with room for 19 passengers, the Global 8000 will whisk passengers around the world at a speed approaching the speed of sound and greater than that of any other private jet currently in the skies.

It will fly at a top operating speed of Mach .94 (about 1,160 km/h). Mach 1, the speed of sound, translates to 1,234 km/h.

During a test flight in May 2021 observed by a NASA-operated Boeing F-18 fighter, the new Bombardier private jet broke the sound barrier when it recorded a speed of Mach 1.015, or 1,243 km/h.

“The Global 8000 private jet is the flagship for a new era where the fastest speed, the longest range and the smoothest ride converge in a single business aircraft with proven reliability and the healthiest, best-connected cabin in the industry,” Bombardier officials said in an earlier online description of the new jet.

Moving forward, the new Pearson Airport facility is expected to host its official inauguration in the near future.

Back in January, top Bombardier brass gave an early tour of the new plant to Ontario Premier Doug Ford and other dignitaries.

A look inside Bombardier’s huge Global Manufacturing Centre at Pearson Airport in Mississauga. (Photo: Bombardier)