Page 10 - FARNBOROUGH 2022 SHOW REVIEW

INTERVIEW

best in its class and the on-board experience is “We are currently selecting the engine and will have a deci-
amazing. It is a very modern airplane. We have sion before the end of the year,” said Meijer. ”We are looking
about 1600 E jets flying in the world today. The at several regions to work together with; the partnership will
transition training from the E1 to E2 is just two and involve both industrial as well as financial cooperation. We
a half days. After that, you can fly the aircraft are looking at mid- 2023 for the launch of the program. It will
together. Being able to fly a mixed fleet is helpful be an aircraft with 25-30 per cent less fuel consumption than
for operators. It is an airplane that carriers can jets on comparable routes. On one-and-a-half hour flights or
use to really complement narrowbodies.” shorter, this aircraft can rally make a difference.”

Meijer is confident the E2 family will do well in The focus on sustainability and on reducing CO2 emissions
Asia. “India has a clear direction to connect the will act as tailwinds for the Energia family of aircraft, believes
mainlines to smaller airports. China as well. For Meijer. “There is a tremendous amount of interest. A lot of
that, you will need smaller aircraft. To do that. operators want to embrace sustainability. The reason we have
We have the E2, which is a smaller aircraft but has launched Energia as concepts and not products is because we
the same seat cost almost as a bigger narrow- want to show the market what we think is a realistic outlook.
body. So, airlines could fly the E2 into the smaller There are a lot of promises out there from people in order to
cities.” attract funding. We do not believe the technology is ready to
achieve their objectives. We want to show what we believe is
Embraer has a good footprint in Asia, but not as realistic. We are interested in talking to partners who can helps
big as it has in Europe and the Americas, says get these concepts realized into products. We believe there
Meijer. “We are seeing significant interest in Asia is future for these concepts and want to talk to customers to
at the moment; more than 40 used E jets moved understand how they fit into their scheme of things.“
into Asia during the pandemic, into Australia and
Vietnam for example. We have more than 100 air- Looking Ahead, with Confidence
craft flying in China today. We believe the E2 can The partnership that was not to be with Boeing did set Embraer
really make a difference for China. In addition to back initially, but Meijer isn’t looking back. “When the part-
connecting smaller airports to the main metrop- nership did not happen, we were all disappointed, but look at
olises and complementing narrow bodies that where we are today. The market today is completely different
are already flying, the E2 nicely fits between the from what existed pre-crisis. Embraer is ideally positioned in
ARJ21 jet and the C919 that they are developing the up-to 150-seats segment. The E jets flew more over the
There are a lot of good reasons for this aircraft to crisis period than any other product. Airlines are really looking
play a much bigger role in Asia going forward.” at the smaller segment as they want to reduce risk.”
Even as it moves to further strengthen its position as the
Warm Reception for Turboprop major player in the regional jet market, Embraer has also
Asia is one of the major markets that Embraer is unveiled plans to launch E190F and E195F Passenger to Freight
eyeing for its turboprop as well. The company Conversions (P2F). The conversions will be performed at the
projects a 20-year demand for 2,200 turboprops company’s facilities in Brazil “We believe the E1s are reaching
and a requirement for 900 from the region alone. an age where conversion makes sense. We are working on
“There are a lot of short-range operations in Asia that. The first conversion is scheduled to be delivered to the
with turboprops, especially in countries such as marker in 2024. We believe that we are perfectly positioned
India We believe we can deliver greater efficiency to fill the gap in the freighter market between turboprops and
in the market segment,” said Meijer. larger narrowbody jets.”

10 AUGUST 2022 WWW.GBP.COM.SG