Bombardier and Embraer square off at ISTAT

Bombardier and Embraer squared off today at the ISTAT conference in San Diego. Rod Sheridan, VP sales and asset management, appeared for BBD and John Slattery, chiefr commercial officer, appeared for EMB.

The following synopsizes and paraphrases their presentations.

RS: BBD is going through an unprecedented product development phase right now: CSeries and corporate aircraft. The CRJ has been a very powerful tool for the airlines around the world. There are 1,800 in the family. The 50 jet jet paved the way for what our products do today.

The CRJ is focused on being the lowest cost airplane in the market, with the lowest trip costs out there.

We haven’t stopped investing in the CRJ to improve fuel burn and efficiency.

The CSeries is the big focus of Bombardier commercial aircraft right now. So far we are very, very pleased with what is coming out of the program. It’s too early to announce results. We are on our way to getting 300 customers by EIS. We hope to have a couple of more customers by Farnborough.

Twenty-five percent of the aircraft are going to leasing companies. We want one-third of our orders with leasing companies by EIS.

We have 50% of the marketshare orders and 75% of the customer base in the 100-149 seat market.

JS: We have more than 1,400 orders for the E-Jet (through Dec. 31) since EIS in 2004. A key to success is broad customer base and we have a goal of 100 customers in 50 countries by 4Q2017. With firm and option last year we had more than 800 commitments last year, providing a book-to-bill that we’re comfortable with.

In the 70-130 seat segment, we have more than 50% of sales and more tan 60% of deliveries.

Our strategy is not to compete with Airbus and Boeing. Our strategy is to continue to develop our airplanes, with enhancements and fuel efficiency. We’re reducing fuel burn on E175 by over 6%. The E195E1 with improvements is more efficient than a turbo prop on segments more than 250 miles.

With the exception of the common cockpit between the E1 and the E2, the E2 is pretty much a brand new airplane.

JS believes fewer than one-third of sales should go to smaller jet aircraft, in contrast to RS/BBD goal of one-third of sales going to lessors.

Sheridan called the pilot shortage for the regional airlines “critical,” with some parking airplanes because they cannot staff their front end. He foresees some of the regional airlines creating pilot academies to train pilots. Slattery said this is not just a USA issue.

Sheridan says BBD has doubled the number of operators for the CRJ in the last five years, and said there are more CRJ operators in Russia than in the US.

One Comment on “Bombardier and Embraer square off at ISTAT

  1. Hi Scott

    Just a clarification: it is the E175-E1 that is more efficient than the ATR72 and Q400 on a DOC/seat basis on sectors above 250 nautical miles. With simmilar size to the turboprops but with a much better cabin and longer range, we believe the E175 can better serve many of the markets that are today flown by large turboprops.

    On a per seat basis the E195 (which you mentioned in your article) will be much more efficient than the turboprops due to its significantly higher seat count.

    Regards Claudio

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