Farnborough: E190-E2 “quietest single aisle airplane in production,” boasts CEO

July 15, 2018, © Leeham News, Farnborough: Embraer today revealed that the E190-E2 achieved better fuel burn than its target of 16%.

Flight tests showed fuel burn was 17.3% better than the E1, said Rodrigo de Souza, VP Marketing in a press briefing in advance of the official show opening tomorrow.

Wideroe Airlines, the launch operator of the E190-E2, now has three in service. De Souza said initial analysis of the operations show fuel burn is even better than the flight test results, but he declined to be specific until more operations are completed with more airplanes in a few months.

Embraer claims fuel burn is 10% better than the Airbus A220.

Wideroe’s small fleet has completed 800 flight hours at an average of seven hours a day. In eight out of 11 weeks, the fleet had 100% dispatch reliability, he said.

Demonstration flight

John Slattery, president and CEO of Embraer Commercial Aviation, told the media that the E2 has the quietest cabin of any in-production single-aisle aircraft. To press the point, a demonstration flight took the international group of press and television on a flight over the English Channel.

Using an App on a Samsung 9 mobile phone, this writer cruised the cabin from the rear to the cockpit measuring the decibel level. The average was 68-70db. Sitting next to the engine at cruising altitude, the db was around 74. The cockpit was a conversational 62db.

Conversation in the cabin often spiked the db meter beyond the engine noise.

Having flown a similar flight two years ago on what was then known as the Bombardier CS100, the elapsed time makes it impossible to have a good recall of that flight, other than it, too was very quiet. But no noise meter was available then.

It’s clear that the E2 is far quieter than the Airbus A320ceo and Boeing 737NG. This writer hasn’t flown on either the A320neo or the 737 MAX.

The Airbus A350 and A380 widebodies seem equally quiet, though no noise meter was available on these flights.

Market demand

Embraer also released its updated 20-year forecast for the sub-100 seat and 100-150 seat sectors.

De Souza forecast 4,660 aircraft in the sub-100 sector will be needed over the next 20 years. The E175, Mitsubishi MRJ, Bombardier CRJ 700/900 and the Sukhoi SSJ compete in this sector.

The 100-150 seat sector has a demand of 5,890 aircraft, de Souza said. The competing aircraft are the E190/195, A220, A319 and Boeing 737-7. This compares with Bombardier’s year-old forecast of about 7,000. Airbus, having acquired a majority stake in the C Series program, said at the time the deal was announced last fall, the forecast in this sector was about 6,000.

Boeing-Embraer

Boeing and Embraer announced this month a memorandum of understanding for a joint venture in which Boeing will own 80% of the company and Embraer owns 20%.

De Souza said the E2 three-member family “perfectly compliments” Boeing’s 7-Series family, slotting in under the 737-7 MAX.

The largest E2, the E195, seats 144 in high density and about 122 in dual class. The 737-7 seats 138 in typical dual-class configuration.

29 Comments on “Farnborough: E190-E2 “quietest single aisle airplane in production,” boasts CEO

  1. If its true that the E2 as a 10% better fuel burn that the A220 why did JetBlue selected the A220. One thing for sure, if they don’t get a big order at Farnborough, the E2 will the aircraft that will have done the less noise at the show.

    • As they say, “There are lies, dammed lies and performance claims”.

    • Statements like this require more context. Is it per trip or per seat? Which member of the E2 family is being compared to which Cseries aircraft here?

      If it’s E190-E2 vs CS100 (A220-100) on a per trip basis, then, well, it’s actually a disadvantage per seat.

    • For JetBlue the choice was between the 195E2 and 220-300, the 223 apparently has a small seat mile cost advantage. Factors as dealing with AB as sole supplier of their aircraft and the fact for example that the 195E2 for is ~3m longer than the 223 although it carries less pax (planing and de-planing times) could also have played a role?

      • Are you implying the E195-E2 takes longer to board and de-plane because it’s a mere 3 meters longer than the A220-300?

        It also has less passengers and 4 abreast instead of 5 abreast which would speed up boarding and de-planing.

        • not necessarily true. More rows = more contention with pax arriving in the wrong order, loading overhead etc etc.

          • I wonder if this has ever been studied empirically? What are the effects of:
            * 4 wide vs 6
            * size of overhead
            * seat pitch
            * aisle width
            * number of rows
            * offset rows left by half a pitch

          • We used to have a fanatic on the subject, frequent traveller but he seems to have given up. Its a shame because he obviously had a lot of knowledge about deplaning,etc.
            What I wonder about is the difference between 5 and 6 abreast, number of rows vs number of people trying to get their luggage from the overhead lockers. This is very important not just for turnaround times,but also because I can’t be the only one who is having problems with claustrophobia when trying to disembark a crowded ULCC flight.

          • I know this is hardly proof, but in my experience the E190 empties a lot faster than any B737 or A320 (including the shorter versions like A318 and old B737-500).

    • Noise measurements are not so easy and the ear is a rather worse thing to determine noise levels. A fighter jet performance before an airliner can misslead the ear.

      There is a reason why microphones are used with a tripod. A person shields noise from microphones.

      • I agree ”Noise measurements are not so easy…” to determine. First of all it need the exact similitude of the test recording in equipment, same microphones (Company, pattern etc…) same or similar place in the aircraft, made by the same analysis company with the same personal.
        In other word, it is impossible to compare the sound level, nothing have been done for that.
        I trust more the wine smelt memory then the earring memory.

    • I understand that it refers to the fact that the 195E2 has a consumption per trip 10% lower than the CS300 and when compared to the CS100 its consumption per seat is 10% lower.

  2. 10% is a huge difference in savings between the two considering their basically on the same engines!

  3. “In eight out of 11 weeks, the fleet had 100% dispatch reliability, he said.” And the other three weeks?

    • Beast from the East ? You would need a year to have some actual numbers that matter

  4. It’s just marketing mumbo jumbo. If it had 0% dispatch reliability for any 3 weeks out of 11 and 100% for the rest, it would technically be true to say that “it had 100% dispatch reliability for 8 out of 11 weeks”.

    • And the E2 carries 16 fewer people in high density configuration.

      You then have to equate that with person per fuel burn, what the range was/is and does the E2 have to make a fuel stop because it does not have the range needed? (or take on fuel)

    • Just watch the Flightradar24 to see that the three aircraft (LN-WEA/B/C) are very consistent, making up to 8 trips a day, never less than 4 trips. Try to compare with the introduction of CS100 just two years ago.

  5. The OEW listed give 35T for E190-e2 compared to 37T for A220-100. plus the smaller fuselage diameter and less wing area you would expect an advantage for the Embraer. Must have a been hard choice between them

  6. Presumably Neeleman might still have some “pull” to get it in the door at “his” Azul in Brazil?

  7. To give some context of a ‘10% fuel burn’ claim, hes part of a story done by LNR comparing fuel burn of different A330 models for the same 4500nm trip and calculated using their own computer model and using neo 800 model as datum
    https://leehamnews.com/2017/11/02/airbus-a330-800-not-selling/
    The A330-200 consumes 51.5t of fuel, the A330-800 44.9t, the A330-300 55.3t and the A330-900 49t. This makes for seat mile fuel differences of A330-200 116.5% (the -800 is datum), A330-300 at 106.1% and finally A330-900 at 91%.

    This gave a fuel burn advantage of the -800 over the -900 of 9%
    This is not too far from the say 10% mentioned for the E2 model ( under unknown conditions).
    However at 9 or 10% advantage in ‘seat mile fuel’ isnt enough to chose the smaller plane as more passengers bring more revenue, an easier concept to understand.

    • Yep, about 16 more possible pax and better range (route flexibility even if you don’t use it all the time)

      If you are going to replace the A320s with the C (moving those orders up to A321) then you need all the pax and range you can get.

  8. I’m glad that the CS, er, 220 will have its day (many years really) in the sun and look forward to riding in one!

    • I gave the C series very little chance,and I was considerably more optimistic than most industry pundits.Being backed by Airbuses infrastructure is obviously a major boost, but it looks increasingly like all the industry experts have got it seriously wrong, along with the whole narrowbody boom.How interesting it would be if someone had the time to revisit their predictions.

    • The great future of the A220-100 & A200-300 is not full steam ahead yet. Now, KoreanAir the A220-300 won’t fly only in Korean country, they will start flying to Fukuoka, Nagoya, Sapporo and Tokyo in September 2018. That’s mean Korean now have a great trust in this CS-300 or A220-300.
      That’s also mean, the Japanese will also fly in those and then eventually comment on them.
      👍

  9. As a general rule, whenever comparing two aircraft of the same generation you can generally expect that:

    – A smaller airplane will have a lower trip cost than a larger airplane.
    – A larger airplane will have a lower per seat cost than a smaller airplane.
    – A plane with shorter range will have a lower cost than a similarly-sized plane with longer range. (The airframe of the latter has to be heavier to carry the extra fuel).

    That’s why it’s very hard to compare two different aircraft in a broad sense. One aircraft might be a clear winner for one operator and a distant loser for another. It all depends on many variables. The OEM’s will obviously compare their offering to the competition using assumptions that would benefit their own design. That’s not misleading per se, or at least it shouldn’t be.

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