London: Bombardier Inc said it won a conditional order valued at $1.02 billion (Dh3.74 billion) for 15 CSeries jets, buoying a model that has struggled for orders in the narrow-body airliner market dominated by Boeing Co. and Airbus SAS.

The buyer of five CS100 models and 10 CS300s doesn’t want to be identified, Bombardier said yesterday in a statement on the eve of the Farnborough air show near London, the aerospace industry’s highest-profile trade event of the year.

Bombardier is trying to break the grip of Airbus and Boeing on single-aisle jet sales to airlines. The Montreal-based planemaker had 138 orders heading into the air show as it seeks to win buyers for a new model able to seat 100 to 149 people, the smaller end of the narrow-body aircraft segment.

“I don’t know if it’s being cracked open, but we’re certainly playing in that area,” Guy Hachey, the president of Bombardier Aerospace, said today in a Bloomberg Television interview from Farnborough. “We’ve figured out there’s a niche for 100 to 140 seats that’s underserved, with a product that’s not optimised. We’ve optimised that product.”

The company gave no timetable for when the acquirer might be identified. The value of the order was based on list prices, Bombardier said. Airlines typically buy at a discount.

Bombardier’s biggest CSeries order so far is from Republic Airways Holdings Inc, which agreed to acquire 40 of the planes in 2011. With other carriers taking only a few CSeries jets so far, compared with scores of planes in recent Boeing and Airbus deals, Bombardier has said its focus is on finding as many buyers as possible.

While Bombardier has planned to get the CSeries airborne in late 2012 and in commercial service by the end of next year, Hachey said July 8 that the timeline for the maiden flight was at risk because of flight-control difficulties. He said today that the target for a commercial debut was still achievable.

“We are driving for flying end by of this year,” Hachey said today. “Everything is lining up accordingly, and then we’d like to enter service at the end of 2013.”