New Embraer Plane Depends on Money and Partnerships to Fly

Boeing crisis and Asian market encourage Brazilian manufacturer to make an unprecedented leap

São Paulo

The possibility of Embraer challenging Airbus and Boeing in the world's most profitable and competitive segment of the commercial aviation market, the "narrow-body" aircraft, has moved from speculation to reality for some time. However, the main obstacle remains: money.

View of a hangar of the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer showing an E195-E2 jet under construction, in Sao Jose dos Campos, some 90 km north of Sao Paulo, Brazil, on May 30, 2022. (Photo by NELSON ALMEIDA / AFP) - AFP

Triggered by a report from the Wall Street Journal, a new wave of rumors is grounded in facts. The first is the technical capacity of the Brazilian manufacturer to design and assemble a larger aircraft —its largest model, the E195-E2, carries 146 passengers.

It is at the limit of the so-called "small narrow-body" category. Above that are the "narrow-body" aircraft —the smallest of these in Boeing's 737 Max line carries 172 customers.

Embraer's engineering is reputed to be among the best in the market, and it was the main objective of the controversially canceled merger by Boeing in 2020.

The scalability of Brazilian products had already been proven with the production of the military cargo plane KC-390, which is experiencing an expansion phase in sales.

Proof of the scenario was Boeing's advance over Embraer, from whom it poached over a hundred engineers.

Read the article in the original language