Embraer gains 125 orders at half-year

John Slattery, chief commercial officer, Embraer Commercial Aircraft. Photo via Google images.

June 17, 2015, Paris Air Show, c. Leeham Co. With focus, as always, on Airbus and Boeing, and an airplane that neither exists nor is about to any time in the near-term (the Middle of the Market aircraft), little attention was paid to Embraer, currently the third of the Big Four commercial aircraft companies.

Embraer finished the Air Show (which essentially ends June 18 for the industrial sector), with 50 orders for the E1 and E2 E-Jets.

John Slattery, the chief commercial officer, said the company is ending the first half of the year with 125 firm orders for the two platforms. EMB now has 70 customers, headed for its target of 100 by 2017, and an important new customer joined the ranks, albeit through a used airplane transaction. Delta Air Lines will purchase 20 E-190s once a new pilot contract is ratified. The airplanes will be flown by Delta pilots for the mainline carrier, not one of its regional partners.

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Bombardier CS300 analysis vs A319neo, 737-7

By Bjorn Fehrm

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Introduction

March 29, 2015, c. Leeham Co: Bombardier’s big bet in the aeronautics sector, CSeries, is well into flight testing, now more than half way toward the 2,400 hours required by Transport Canada before certification can be granted. The first aircraft to be certified will be the smaller 110 seat CS100 but the market is most interested in the larger 135 seat CS300, which has 63% of present orders and commitments, Figure 1.

CS300

Figure 1. Cseries largest model, CS300. Source: Bombardier.

Bombardier’s new CEO, Alan Bellemare, told reporters last week that the CS100 would be certified during 2015 with entry into service slipping into 2016. The CS300, which is a direct challenger to Airbus’ A319neo and Boeing’s 737-7, should follow six months after CS100. With the CS300 in flight testing and going into service next summer, we decided to have a deeper look at CS300 and its competitors.

Summary

  • A319 and 737-7 are shrinks of the market’s preferred models, A320 and 737-8, and as such not the most efficient models.
  • The CS300 is the series center-point and it shows. The modern design beats the Airbus and Boeing designs on most counts.
  • Part of the modern concepts in CSeries is the well-conceived Pratt & Whitney PW1000G geared turbofan.
  • PW’s 73 in fan version of the PW1000G for CSeries is slightly less efficient that the 81 in version for A319neo but CS300 lower weight makes sure this is more than compensated for.

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Is next airliner a single or dual aisle?

By Bjorn Fehrm

19 Feb 2015: There has been much speculation over the last weeks and months what Boeing is up to in the segment 200 to 250 seats, also know as the “757 replacement market“. The speculations over Airbus response are also vivid. One of the reasons is that apart from this segment the landscape of which civil airliners will be produced over the next 10-15 years is pretty much settled; Cseries is on final stretch of development, A320neo is flying while 737 MAX flies next year. A330neo will fly 2017 as will 787-10. A350-1000 start testing in 2016 with deliveries in 2017 and 777-9X flies 2019 with deliveries 2020.

Apart from an announcement by Russia and China that they will design a 250-280 seat widebody there is only the “757 replacement” segment which can result in a clean sheet approach from the major OEMs. Around this questions has arisen a lot of speculation about possible short and long term solutions. Having done a lot of checking of these alternatives with our proprietary model, we have learned that:

  • The 757 has an attractive capacity but is around 25% less efficient than the new generation of single aisle, A321neo or 737 MAX9, on the routes they can fly.
  • Airbus could stretch the A321 into something we called A321neoLR and indeed Airbus was working on it, it is now in the market as A321LR.
  • While 737 MAX9 limitations prohibited a response from Boeing we compared Airbus A321neoLR to what Boeing might come up with in their clean sheet design studies NSA (New Single Aisle) and NLT (New Light Twin)
  • Subsequently a 757 MAX was proposed but Boeing immediately declared that it does not work for them and we explained why.
  • Based on Boeing’s statement that the market is looking for something “a little larger than a 757” we looked into a 767 MAX with 767-200 as the airframe (it would be readily available from the KC-46 program) with GEnx-2B engines (from 747-8, they would fit). Once again it does not pass the first check, efficiency would not be much better than 757.

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