Embraer’s $150 million divorce settlement from Boeing – announced on 16 September after more than four years of legal wrangling – marks the end of one the most remarkable betrothals in recent aerospace history.
Back in early 2020, as reports circulated of a mysterious infectious coronavirus spreading through Asia, executives at the Brazilian company’s headquarters in Sao Jose dos Campos were putting the finishing touches to a complex internal restructuring that would carve out the commercial aviation business from the rest of the company.
Once complete, the plan was for that entity to fold into Boeing, leaving just two Western manufacturers of jet airliners. Embraer’s erstwhile rival Bombardier was in the process of divesting the remainder of its commercial aviation interests, having transferred its flagship CSeries narrowbody programme to Airbus where it became the A220.
Embraer’s executive jets and defence units would remain within the legacy company, the Brazilian government having been reluctant to allow the latter – responsible for the Super Tucano and C-390 military aircraft as well as some sensitive technologies – to fall into foreign hands.
However, in April, amid the introduction of stay-at-home mandates that would leave the aviation sector at a near-standstill – and Boeing already in crisis following the grounding of its 737 Max – the US manufacturer walked away from the deal.
In his office in Amsterdam, Arjan Meijer was preparing to take over as head of an organisation that – rather than being subsumed into one of the world’s big two aircraft manufacturers – now had to be reintegrated back into Embraer.
For the second time in a year, production lines were paused as accountants, lawyers, and human resources professionals glued the pieces of the company back together again, reissuing employment contracts and supplier agreements, and updating finance systems.
As he embarks on his fifth year as its chief executive and president, Meijer insists Embraer Commercial Aviation (ECA) is a very different, fitter, business than the one that was on the verge of being offloaded in 2020.
“Four and a half years down the road, we are glad it is behind us,” the Dutch executive, who was previously chief commercial officer, told an Aviation Club audience in London on 19 September.
On first hearing, Meijer’s claim that ECA is stronger than it was in the run-up to the failed merger may sound a stretch. Embraer delivered 64 commercial aircraft in 2023 and is projecting between 72 and 80 deliveries this year, well behind the 89 it shipped in 2019. The company has also been hit by problems with the Pratt & Whitney geared-turbofan engine; its E190-E2 and E195-E2 are powered by the PW1900G variant.
However, he maintains “demand is there” and that deliveries have been growing at “high double-digit” rates since the end of the pandemic. He notes the mathematical truism that to go almost overnight – as Embraer did – from manufacturing some 100 commercial jets a year to around 50 when the pandemic struck represents a 50% drop in production: “But to get back to these numbers we must achieve a 100% increase.”
Meijer also believes that the shared engineering resource and other synergies with the rest of Embraer – such as the fly-by-wire controls in the C-390 military airlifter and the advanced avionics in its Phenom and Praetor executive jet families, not to mention electric vertical take-off and landing innovations with Eve – make ECA “stronger” in its technological capabilities.
He says that when the Boeing merger was being worked on, Embraer overall was in a weaker position. But sales of executive jets soared during the recovery from the pandemic, as those who could afford to charter or buy private aircraft avoided the airlines. Meanwhile, the C-390 has boosted its orderbook since 2019 with commitments from Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, and South Korea to add to those from Brazil and Portugal.
However, ECA must continue to rebuild its market fortunes without a turboprop. It was at an Aviation Club luncheon in 2017 that Meijer’s predecessor John Slattery revealed that the manufacturer was speaking to at least 20 influential airlines about a potential turboprop that would offer competition to “decades old” designs from ATR and Bombardier, then still offering the Q400.
By 2022 Embraer was admitting that it was struggling to bring supplier partners on board, notably for an engine. While as late as January last year Meijer was insisting that the turboprop was “not on ice”, and a launch was still being considered, that possibility is now firmly over, with Meijer confirming on 16 September that any new commercial aircraft from Embraer will now have to comprise next-decade propulsion technologies.
Those technologies are likely to be hybrid, with Meijer stating that “fully electric” is only appropriate for much smaller aircraft and “hydrogen we think will take longer from a landscape standpoint” – in other words, establishing a viable network of liquid hydrogen supply. However, “hybrid we could do within 15 years”, he says.
In 2021, Embraer launched its Energia study, comprising four low- or zero-emission concepts. The project has moved on since then, with the manufacturer now focusing on designs of up to 50 seats, and on hybrid- and fuel cell power. It is an interesting niche. The 50-seat regional airliner has virtually disappeared, with no in-production type except the ATR 42-600. Embraer believes a new-generation, sustainable airliner in this size category could revive the market.
One development that is for certain in cold storage for now is the third and smallest member of the E2 family, the E175-E2, which flew for the first time in 2019. Too heavy for the US market, which has so-called scope clauses to limit the ability of regional pilots to fly aircraft over a certain weight, it will now only go into production “if scope clauses go, and we see no immediate prospect of that”, says Meijer.
Meanwhile, Embraer continues to produce the “E1” version of the E175, and Meijer says that, with improvements to the cabin and cockpit, there remains a “very significant market for years to come”. At July’s Farnborough air show, Embraer announced a slew of upgrades to the GE Aerospace CF34-8E-powered type, including E2-style larger overhead bins, updated avionics, satellite connectivity, and new Recaro seats.
Embraer is also hoping its passenger-to-freighter conversion for the E190 – which it will carry out at its own facilities – will provide a market for older passenger versions of the aircraft and boost sales of its E190-E2 successor. The “E-Freighter” programme has been approved by Brazilian and US regulators and Meijer is confident European Union Aviation Safety Agency certification will follow “in the next couple of months”.
Another technological advance is the E2’s automatic take-off system, announced in July and which is designed to reduce pilot workload and increase range from short runways. Embraer Enhanced Takeoff System, or E2TS, should be available on new aircraft and as a retrofit from the fourth quarter of 2025.
With the Boeing merger now in the history books, Meijer says Embraer is still interested in partnerships with other aerospace companies. It signed a memorandum of understanding with BAE Systems at Farnborough 2022, for instance, to jointly market the C-390 in the Middle East. However, as far as his part of the group is concerned, he stresses: “We have made it very clear that Embraer Commercial Aviation is not for sale.”
