Bombardier gets grounded aircraft back in the air with Service Cloud

Every grounded minute matters

Bombardier builds and services sophisticated aircraft for customers around the world. When an aircraft is grounded, owners expect to be back in the air within 24 hours so business trips, personal travel, and other plans can continue.

Getting there requires support teams to quickly understand what went wrong and what work the aircraft has received. Maintenance records could span multiple hangars, so dispatchers sometimes had to coordinate a response without a complete service history, slowing diagnosis and resolution.

The stakes extend beyond getting customers flying as service is Bombardier’s most profitable business segment. Fast, reliable support helps keep customers coming back to Bombardier for maintenance and aftermarket parts instead of turning to third-party providers.

From first call to field repair

To get grounded aircraft back in the air faster, Bombardier connected the people handling the first call with the teams coordinating the repair. Service Cloud manages aircraft-on-ground cases in the Customer Response Center, while Field Service and Operations supports the complex dispatch that follows when a technician is needed on-site.

When a customer reports a grounded aircraft, the Customer Response Center logs and routes the case in Service Cloud. If the issue requires field support away from a Bombardier hangar, the case moves to the Maintenance Command Center. There, a human confirms technician availability and contacts the customer before dispatch, preserving the approval process required by aviation regulations.

Once the dispatch is approved, Field Service helps coordinate everything needed to reach the aircraft. For example, imagine a jet is grounded hundreds of miles from the nearest service center. Field Service helps identify a technician with the right skills and certifications, locate the necessary parts and specialized tools, and arrange travel — including a chartered flight when needed. This helps technicians arrive with a service plan and maintenance history already in hand, ready to diagnose the problem and get the aircraft flying again.

One workflow, built for the field

Service Cloud gives Bombardier’s Customer Response Center a central console for managing aircraft-on-ground cases. Salesforce case management supports rules, queues, routing, and escalation, and each rep has a service console that brings each case and related records together on one screen.

“If you’re able to retrieve a case that is similar to the case being reported by the customer, you can use it as a starting point,” said Andre Poulin, Customer Response Center Director. “You can use previous cases to build a more effective troubleshooting plan or response for new cases with similar technical issues. Salesforce gives us that history and visibility.”

Field Service and Operations extends that workflow into the field. Its scheduling tools can match work with technicians based on skills, availability, location, and travel time, while tracking work orders, service appointments, parts, and inventory. Onsite technicians can access work orders, update jobs, track parts, and communicate with dispatchers from the field, all using the Salesforce Field Service app.

Bombardier’s next step is adding deeper technical context. They plan to connect contact center agents to Data 360 and internal knowledge for AI-assisted diagnostics during case intake. That could eventually give service teams access to the same 500-plus technical documents from Salesforce and SharePoint that Bombardier already uses to ground agentic sales engineer Clara in aircraft specifications and technical information.

Protecting value after the sale

Bombardier’s coordinated response to aircraft-on-ground events gives customers more reason to rely on them for future maintenance, repairs, and aftermarket parts — creating recurring revenue long after the initial aircraft sale.

It also gives Bombardier a foundation for capturing more service opportunities across their global fleet. As AI-assisted diagnostics become part of case intake, teams could determine what an aircraft needs earlier. Preparing more precise responses before dispatch will help Bombardier strengthen long-term relationships and capture more of the maintenance opportunity across the aircraft lifecycle.