If you’re flying on a regional flight within the U.S. right this moment, chances are high it is on an Embraer E-Jet.
The E-Jet household — the E170 and E175, particularly — make up about half of the 1,367 regional jets that have been flying for Alaska Airways, American Airways, Delta Air Traces and United Airways on the finish of 2023, their respective fleet plans present. Different much less widespread fashions embody Mitsubishi’s, and previously Bombardier’s, CRJ household and Embraer’s older ERJ household.
The E-Jets are so widespread — it helps that there is not any competing aircraft in manufacturing — that American ordered one other 90 E175s in March to enrich the greater than 240 already in its American Eagle fleet. Not dangerous for a aircraft that first flew greater than 20 years in the past.
“The 175-E1 remains to be an ideal plane for the U.S.,” Arjan Meijer, president and CEO of Embraer Industrial, mentioned at an investor occasion in New York on Monday. “We consider there’s a great market forward of us.”
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That market consists of changing older 50-seat plane, notably CRJ200s and ERJ-145s, as they disappear from U.S. skies. Delta associates flew their final CRJ200 flight in December 2023, schedule information from aviation analytics agency Cirium Diio reveals. United plans to retire the 50-seat fashions at its associates within the subsequent few years and American by the top of the last decade.
Meijer couldn’t give a precise variety of planes Embraer hopes to promote, because the substitute of 50-seat regional jets won’t be one-for-one resulting from pilot contract limits. However, he mentioned, the marketplace for E175-size planes is substantial on condition that many locations throughout the U.S. are too small for bigger planes just like the Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX households.
Whatever the numbers, one factor is obvious: U.S. flyers can count on to see E175s on common rotation by means of the 2030s — and possibly effectively into the 2040s.
That is each good and dangerous information for Embraer. Whereas continued E175 gross sales are a constructive for the Brazilian plane-maker’s backside line, they arrive on the expense of its subsequent era of E-Jets, often known as the E2, that have been developed to exchange the unique fashions.
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Based on the corporate, the E175-E2 affords double-digit gas effectivity positive aspects over the E175, often known as the E175-E1, plus extra vary and barely extra seats. The up to date aircraft seats 80 passengers, somewhat than 76, within the two-class configuration that’s normal at U.S. regionals.
Regardless of these efficiency positive aspects, the E175-E2 has but to notch a single agency order from the U.S. The dearth of offers prompted Embraer in 2022 to delay certification of the aircraft to 2027 or 2028, not less than three years later than deliberate.
The dearth of curiosity is the results of strict guidelines within the pilot contracts of Alaska, American, Delta and United. These guidelines, often known as “scope clauses,” govern the dimensions and variety of regional plane that the most important airways can contract to associates. They at the moment cap the dimensions of regional jets at 76 seats with a most takeoff weight of 86,000 kilos; the E175-E2 is barely too massive and heavy, seating 80 passengers with a most takeoff weight of 98,767 kilos.
“The E175-E1, it is such an amazingly robust plane, it is mainly inflicting its personal want to not change the scope clause,” Meijer mentioned.
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Pilot contracts at Alaska, American, Delta and United that lock within the present regional jet limits don’t come up for renewal till 2026 on the earliest.
The E175 that American and different airways are shopping for right this moment will not be the identical aircraft that Embraer first flew in 2003. The addition of “wingtips” — angled extensions to the tip of the wings — in 2014 improved gas effectivity by greater than 6% in comparison with the unique mannequin with unmodified wings.
With continued E175 gross sales and the E2 on pause, Embraer is in a holding sample when it comes to what’s subsequent for the regional plane phase. Work on a possible new turboprop that might seat as much as 90 passengers is within the “deep freezer,” as Meijer put it. And whereas analysis into different new applied sciences, together with hydrogen gas cell propulsion and electrical vertical takeoff and touchdown (or eVTOL) planes continues, the plane-maker has but to set a selected route for its subsequent business plane.
“We’re actually investing in new applied sciences to maintain our readiness for a brand new product,” Embraer CEO Francisco Gomes Neto mentioned Monday. “At this level of time, we do not have a concrete plan to go this manner or that approach.”
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