Bombadier Aerospace is in talks with a number of potential customers in a bid to secure new design engineering work that could reduce the number of jobs under threat at its Belfast facility.

Bombardier believes this approach and its efforts to repatriate previously outsourced work together with the retraining and redeploying of its employees will help safeguard hundreds of the 1,000 jobs that are at risk.

Last autumn, the Canadian aerospace group, which employs more than 7,000 people in Northern Ireland, announced that 2,000 jobs were at risk following the downturn in the aviation sector following the terrorist attacks on the United States.

Bombardier's Belfast division specialises in the design and manufacture of fuselages, nacelles and composite structures, particularly for Bombardier's regional and business jets. To date, 416 permanent employees and 550 subcontractors and temporary staff have been laid off at its Belfast facility.

Bombardier said the job losses were a direct result of the reduction in production rates by its customers of 15-50 per cent.