My interview of Bombardier Switzerland’s Managing Director

For the Swiss business media outlet Bilan, I interviewed Stephane Wettstein, Managing Director and Chief Country Representative of Bombardier Switzerland. This company has won the “contract of the century” from the Swiss National Railway (SBB).  

Key statements of Stephane Wettstein included:

• Regarding the "contract of the century" and the delivery delays of several years, I do not think that the teething troubles in our new trains have been unusual, but we have to admit that both SBB and ourselves have underestimated the time needed to fulfil this order.
• Covid-19 has caused us a lot of problems. To respect the minimum distances of two meters at our production site in Villeneuve, we can only use 40% to 50% of our capacity. Despite this issue, we were able to deliver on time the trains planned for April, May and June of this year. In addition, an array of other trains will be delivered on schedule this year.
• I won't hide from you that we have serious problems getting certain components delivered to us. For example, our Italian supplier of seats had to temporarily stop production. For this reason, we believe that our last trains will be delivered at the beginning of 2022, rather than by summer 2021 … unless our plans are put at risk by a strong second Covid-19 wave.

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@PhilippeMonnier