Joint piece produced by James Field & Jamie Clarke – Live Coverage on the Blog Provided by Thomas Saunders

FARNBOROUGH – On the second day of the Farnborough Air Show 2022, Embraer flew into the lead on aircraft sales with a total of 278 orders being announced.

This included 20 E195-E2’s for Canadian carrier Porter, eight E175-E1’s for the U.S. carrier Horizon Air and the biggest of all, 250 LoIs (Letter of Intent) for their new NG Turboprop aircraft.

All Turboprop Next Generation LoI’s = Airlines, Not Lessors

One key element about this turboprop next generation order is that the letters of intent consist of customers that are airlines only.

There is not a single lessor in this order, as mentioned by Embraer during the briefing, which does give a level of uniquity to proceedings.

It highlights that there is enough direct interest from regional or legacy carriers (Hard to assume as we don’t know the customer list), to buy the aircraft outright rather than go down the leasing route.

For the TPNG 70 & 90, this is a great starting point on the sales perspective, and is definitely going to give it the advertising it needs to potentially secure more orders down the line.

It is going to be interesting to see who the customers will be for these aircraft, and what layer of regional flying they may have under their belts depending on the areas in the world.

The Energia Family Foundations

As part of Embraer’s extensive sustainability roadmap that will ultimately help them achieve their net zero carbon emissions goals by 2050, Embraer recently announced what they have called their ‘Energia’ family of regional aircraft.

The Energia family consists of new regional aircraft, mostly turboprops, that will be powered by much more environmentally friendly engine solutions. Some of which will be electric or hydrogen.

As part of their roadmap to 2050, Embraer is expecting their NG Turboprop aircraft to be introduced between 2025 and 2030, then from 2030 to 2035 we should see their Energia Hybrid aircraft program in full effect.

By 2035 we should see both the Energia Electric and Energia H2 Fuel Cell aircraft, by 2040 they aim to introduce their Energia H2 Gas Turbine model and just before 2045 we should see their NG Turboprop H2 and finally shortly after 2045, their E2 H2 models.

Regional Prop Market Rebounding?

In the interests of sustainability, which Embraer & ATR have been pointing towards, it is no wonder that the regional prop market is rebounding.

ATR has already secured around 57 new orders for regional prop aircraft this week so far.

With Embraer acquiring 250 sales in just one sitting of a media briefing, this means that the regional competition is going to heat up once again.

Obviously, these sorts of aircraft are going to have better cost efficiencies than jet aircraft so that may prove to be an advantage to the airlines actually buying them, especially on shorter routes.

Overall

Embraer has clearly found a gap in the turboprop market.

By creating new and sustainable aircraft, this may have had an effect in having so many LoI’s lined up for them already.

Looking ahead, it’s going to be interesting to see whether Embraer develops a consistent sales flow for this new aircraft type, and whether this will help with the struggle of securing orders for its E2 program.

Either way, the idea of sustainability is forcing manufacturers like Embraer to innovate, and the results from this are definitely going in the right direction.