Bombardier last night officially opened its new business aircraft service center at Singapore’s Seletar Airport. The new 92,000-sq-ft facility is the first factory-owned service center for Bombardier business aircraft operators in the Asia Pacific region.

“Operators in this part of the world have not previously had this level of [customer support]; they’ve had to go to North America [to get aircraft worked on],” said Stan Younger, Bombardier Aerospace’s v-p of service centers. “We can provide C checks and AOG support right across the region,” he added.

The new facility has opened with 41 employees, including 25 technicians. Bombardier recruited local staff before the center was built and sent them to its service center in Hartford, Connecticut, for full training.

The service center already holds maintenance approvals for business aircraft registered in Singapore, Europe, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the Philippines, Malaysia, Australia and the Isle of Man. Now that the U.S. Congress has finally lifted restrictions on FAA approval of foreign repair stations, Bombardier will be applying for Part 145 certification for the Singapore facility.

Bombardier also has authorized service centers in the Indian cities of Mumbai and New Delhi (run by Airworks) and in Australia (run by ExecuJet Aviation). The manufacturer has parts depots here in Singapore as well as in Tokyo, Beijing, Hong Kong and Sydney.

Here at the Singapore show, Bombardier is exhibiting two of its business jets, the Challenger 605 and the Global 6000. The Challenger 605 can seat nine to 12 passengers. It has a high cruise Mach number of 0.82. With its Mach 0.74 long-range cruise, range is 4,000 nm. This translates into non-stop flights, from Singapore, to most of Asia, Australia, eastern Africa and the south of the Arabic peninsula.

The Global 6000 typically seats a dozen passengers. Its high cruise Mach number is 0.88. Its range, 6,000 nm, corresponds to a Mach number of 0.85. From Hong Kong, the Global 6000 can thus reach all of Australasia, most of Canada’s and the U.S. West Coast, and a large part of Africa and Europe.

Bombardier’s most recent market forecast, published in June 2013, predicted that 5,000 new business aircraft will be delivered into the Asia Pacific region between now and 2032. “Demand in this region has been phenomenal,” said regional v-p Nilesh Pattanayak. He identified Indonesia and Malaysia as especially strong areas of demand over the past 12 months, indicating that the Challenger 605 and Global aircraft have been especially popular both due to their long-range capability and their generous cabin dimensions.