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Bombardier posted first-quarter revenue and profit in line with revised expectations issued a week ago, when it sharply cut estimates for full-year profit and revenue. Bombardier also cut targets for the transportation division, its largest unit, raising concerns over its five-year plan to improve performance after a cash-crunch in 2015.

While not formal guidance, the 2020 targets were closely watched by investors.

While Bellemare said he still expects higher earnings and revenues in 2020, executives want to first see the company’s progress over the next few months on five delayed rail projects.

“On the train side we had a bit of a setback,” Bellemare acknowledged, while stressing that he is “not losing faith” in the company’s largest business by revenues.

The company had slashed its full-year transportation revenue forecast by almost 8 per cent to about US$8.75 billion.

Bellemare said the rail division was making progress, but the project delay impacts might dog the company into 2020.

Bombardier’s planned sale of its Belfast wing and structure-making operation, the largest high-tech manufacturer in Northern Ireland which employs 3,600, stunned workers who called on the British government to retain jobs.

Bellemare said the company will be working with Europe’s Airbus SE to find “the next best potential buyer” for the wing-making facility which produces wings for the A220 narrowbody jet.

Industry analysts say the Belfast plant pioneered a leap forward in carbon-fiber wings technology that may be attractive to Airbus for its next generation of planes.