Officially, the order still exists.«"We have a valid contract», says Embraer's civil aviation CEO John Slattery. Nevertheless, Skywest's order was removed from the order backlog as a precautionary measure. The uncertainties surrounding it are too bic, because union agreements do not yet allow the American regional airline to use the 100 Embraer E175-E2 aircraft it has ordered.
That's why the order book for the smallest variant of the new E2 jets in fact shows zero orders, while 70 units of the larger E190-E2 and 154 units of the even larger E195-E2 were bought. Slattery is nevertheless optimistic about the variant. «I assume that the E175-E2 will make up a third of our production when the time is right», he said in an interview with journalists.
New orders apparently pending
The base for the optimism is new orders that are currently being negotiated. «We're having good talks on the E175-E2», says Slattery. He hopes that Embraer will be able to announce new orders from customers outside the U.S. in the coming months. The Irishman describes the location of the possible clients more precisely as follows: «In Europe and elsewhere».
At least one can speculate about the European customer. Only in June Willie Walsh, head of the British Airways parent company International Airlines Group IAG, announced to aeroTELEGRAPH to renew the fleet of the regional subsidiary BA Cityflyer. We will be ordering «at least 26 aircraft», according to the manager. Embraer's E2 jets and Airbus' A220 are in the race. In the coming months, IAG wants to make the decision.
Advantage Embraer
Nevertheless, Slattery indicated a voluntary delay. Embraer is currently checking whether the market entry of the E175-E2 will be postponed «minimally» despite its maiden flight in the current year. This has nothing to do with problems in the production of Embraer, he says. «We could easily launch the jet at the end of 2021», says Slattery. The possible postponement is due to investment and cash flow reasons. And he adds: «If it were, it would be a matter of months, certainly not years.»
