Norm, "There are no surprises here. The fact that Airbus and Boeing would update their respective A320 and 737 lines to compete with the C Series was inevitable. Overall, this analysis seems to be about right."

Nope. No surprises. I agree. That's what I've been suggesting for a number of years now. Anyone reading my posts shouldn't be surprised. So, it's no surprise that you aren't surprised.

Heck, I don't even know why we're looking for surprises anyway. I certainly don't post to surprise anyone. Often there are many redundancies in the info I read, and deem worthy of posting.

That's because I believe it helps to see confirmation of perspective from various sources. I tend to give a view a little more credibility when I can evaluate the quality of the source and it takes on more credibility when we can see that it comes from more than a single source.

Yes, Bombardier itself indicated that it fully expected Airbus, Boeing, and Embraer to respond. The NEO is expected to become available in 2016, Boeing's 737MAX 2018. Embraer appears to be holding off for now, although it has indicated it will invest in upgrading its E-series instead.

Neither should we be surprised to see NEO and MAX wracking up many more orders than CSeries since Boeing and Airbus are larger airplanes. Although there's some overlap at the bottom end of the larger planes CSeries can't really compete with larger NEOs and MAXs. And of course, these products can offer greater commonality.

At the same time, demand is great in the commercial narrowbody category and the commercial aircraft market in general.

I don't think anyone expected CSeries to "beat" Airbus and Boeing to the extent that they'd completely dominate the narrowbody market.

Boeing and Airbus definitely have the edge when it comes to cutting margins to compete on price. Greater volume allows them to do that, but then they take big risks if parts and other resources rise too quickly pushing up costs.

Order intake is always a balancing act where you try to make enough money on each unit to profit while at the same time keeping costs down and pricing the product competitively enough to sell sufficient volume.

Exploiting greater ability to cut margins is a strategy we might expect Boeing and Airbus to employ in order to try to keep new competitors out of the larger commercial jet aircraft space.

Bombardier, on the other hand, probably profits well enough from a lower volume/greater margins approach. Bombardier has less capacity to ramp up production and might have greater difficulty delivering high volume, but with a superior product like CSeries it has less need.

My guess is Bombardier's happy enough with current demand where it is. We should see order volume rise as the aircraft approaches production and customers see it becoming a reality.

The real challenge now is getting CSeries out the door.

In the context of myriad delays from Boeing, Airbus, and Lockheed Martin recent new aircraft project delays customers can be forgiven for expecting delays of similar magnitude from an even smaller manufacturer.

In fact, the real surprise might be if Bombardier actually gets CSeries going without a similar plague of problems.

If the company can deliver by starting production and delivery with a minimum of delay, more airlines/leasing outfits will want the product.