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Brazil's Embraer looking to step up jet production
New Delhi:
Brazilian planemaker
Embraer is looking to increase production rate of its commercial planes to 120 a year from 73 now, as airlines call for competition to end the
Boeing-Airbus duopoly
.
Embraer is the third-largest aircraft manufacturer behind Boeing and Airbus. It manufactures regional planes with capacities ranging from 50 to 132 seats.
"This year, we have a plan to deliver 75 to 80 planes in the commercial segment. We plan to increase production to 110 to 120 per year," Francisco Gomez Neto, chief executive officer of Embraer, told ET in an interview.
Embraer
is also examining the potential of a clean sheet design to increase market share. Neto didn't confirm if that would be a commercial jetliner, but reports have suggested that the company is planning a next-generation, narrow-body jet which can compete with best seller aircraft like the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737.
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"It could be a new commercial or business jet... New commercial jet, bigger or smaller than what we have today," said Neto. "We are talking to engine makers, studying different types of wings. We want to make sure that if we build a new product, it should be one for the next two to three decades."
European aerospace major Airbus is developing a next-generation, single-aisle aircraft for introduction in the second half of the 2030s, the company said.
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Boeing and Airbus are months and years behind on new aircraft deliveries, frustrating airlines that want to upgrade to more fuel-efficient planes and launch new services.
Emirates CEO Tim Clark said the industry is still facing chronic aerospace supply problems and challenged plane makers to take responsibility.
"I am pretty tired of seeing the hand-wringing about the supply chain: you (manufacturers) are the supply chain," Clark said last week at a press briefing in New Delhi. However, though he said that the industry needs a third manufacturer, he added that currently it doesn't look like the duopoly would end so soon.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby also called for more competition in the aerospace business.
Neto said he sees opportunities in India in commercial and business jets, as well as military aircraft, and is ready to set up a final assembly line if it secures a large order from the country's airlines.
"We are very open to discuss, but we need to have scale of deliveries in India in order to make sense, make business sense, but we are open to do it," Neto said.
