TORONTO (Reuters) New orders worth about C$285 million for Bombardier Inc business jets show returning demand, but analysts say it may take a while for the company’s backlog to return to pre-recession levels.

Bombardier said yesterday it won orders for five mid-sized Learjet 85s and two large-cabin Challenger 605 jets worth a total of about $155 million from Munich-based airline Jet Air Flug.

Separately, the company said it received an order from Swiss-based luxury charter operator Comlux The Aviation Group for two Global 7000 jets worth a total of about $130 million.

That’s certainly good news for Bombardier, the world’s biggest business jet manufacturer, as orders have been soft and cancellations high since the economic downturn, but the new orders do not change much in the near term, said David Tyerman, an analyst at Canaccord Genuity.

“Until they can get a higher level of orders their backlog is down a lot now they’re not positioned to grow production at all,” he said, referring to the company’s Challenger and Learjet manufacturing operations.

The scarcity of new orders pushes returns further out on the horizon and means that production of smaller business jets will stay low, Tyerman said.

The high-end Global 7000 is still in the development phase and is not due on the market until 2016, while the clean-sheet Learjet 85, built mainly from composite materials, is due to come into service in 2013.

The Global series of luxury business jets is the best performing for Bombardier now and the company will increase production levels in March.

Nicholas Heymann, an analyst at Sterne Agee in New York, said the recovery at the top end of the business jet market seems intact, but that demand for smaller planes may take a lot longer as there are a lot of players offering product, and not many buyers.

Smaller business jets such as Learjets are typically used in fractional business jet ownership, where shares are sold to individual owners who pay monthly and annual fees for use of the aircraft.

Heymann said typical buyers in that market have been deep-pocketed executives, but in today’s age of austerity, fewer of them are willing to slap down platinum cards for the service.

“The small end of the market is maybe just not what it was,” he said. “You’ve got a whole lot of production and a whole lot of assets out there to absorb.”

He said that over time more demand for smaller business jets may be found in the developing economies of Latin America, India, and China, where wealth creation is soaring.

Tyerman said strengthening balance sheets at many companies bodes well for a business jet recovery, but that it’s difficult to say when that will happen.

Last quarter, Bombardier said it delivered 33 business jets. But while 33 planes went out the door, there were only 13 net new orders.

Cancellations of business jet orders at Bombardier, which is the world’s No. 3 civil aircraft maker after Airbus and Boeing, have been stuck in the double digits as of late, with 14 cancellations last quarter, 12 the quarter before that, 16 before that, and 26 before that.