Ten days after announcing a conditional agreement for the sale of CRJ900s to Dublin-based regional carrier CityJet, Bombardier Commercial Aircraft ha sconfirmed the signature of a firm purchase agreement. The agreement includes six CRJ900s and options for an additional four aircraft. Upon delivery, the aircraft will operate under wet lease in the Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) network.

Based on the list price of the CRJ900 aircraft, the firm order is theoretically valued at approximately $280m, or $467m, should CityJet exercise all its options.

CityJet currently owns a fleet of eight CRJ900 aircraft which are on wet lease service with SAS. The airline will also take delivery of four new CRJ900 aircraft in early 2017 as per Bombardier’s order announcement on 25th April 2016, bringing CityJet’s owned fleet of CRJ900 aircraft to 12.

As part of its recently finalized acquisition of Cimber A/S, a Danish regional airline and a former wholly owned subsidiary of SAS, CityJet will operate Cimber’s fleet of 11 CRJ900 aircraft also on wet lease service with SAS. These aircraft will be replaced by up to 10 additional CRJ900 aircraft ordered under the firm purchase agreement with Bombardier that was announced today.

CityJet operates ten routes from across Europe to London City, where it currently holds approximately 30% of the airport slots. CityJet also has a significant wet lease business, including services on behalf of Air France and SAS, as well as operating a wide range of ad hoc charters.

In March 2016, CityJet was purchased by an investment group led by Executive Chairman Pat Byrne. The airline is now focused on delivering a strategy which sees it consolidate its scheduled business and grow its position as a leading provider of wet lease services to customer airlines.