Bombardier Aerospace has received a Millennium Product award from the UK Design Council for an aircraft component designed and manufactured in Northern Ireland. The award is for a new type of thrust reverser, which is the part of the engine nacelle system designed to slow an aircraft during landing. The systems are made in Belfast by the aerospace company, Shorts, and supplied to its Canadian parent Bombardier for its 70-seater CRJ 700 regional jet.

Shorts is one of the world's leading suppliers of engine nacelles, and makes them for a number of top engine manufacturers, including General Electric, Rolls Royce, and Pratt and Whitney.

Shorts' vice-president and general manager Ken Brundle said that the award was a tribute to the engineering excellence of the new product, and the skills of the Belfast workforce.

`Millennium Products' is a UK Design Council initiative to identify and promote the most innovative products and services created in the UK in the five years leading up to the year 2000.

Bombardier Aerospace, a unit of Bombardier Inc, is the world's third-largest civil aircraft manufacturer, with operations in three countries, and is the leading supplier in the 20- to 70-passenger regional carrier market.