Brazil's Embraer jets are sized right for U.S. market

SAO JOSE DOS CAMPOS, Brazil -- Aircraft workers here on a big assembly line about an hour north of Sao Palo wield screeching rivet guns on the tails and fuselages of a half-dozen gleaming new jets.

Many of the planes they're making — 70- to 124-seat Embraer "E-Jets," as they're dubbed in the industry — will shuttle people between New York, Boston, Washington and Chicago on Delta. Or, some will ferry passengers on JetBlue flights from Boston to Bermuda, New York to Nassau or Fort Lauderdale to Cancun, Mexico.

If you've flown up to half-way across the country, chances are good you've been on a plane made by Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer. Nearly every U.S. airline or their regional partners are flying its newer E-Jets or older, smaller ERJ jets that seat 37 to 50 passengers. In all, Embraer counts more than 850 of its aircraft in the fleets of U.S. carriers.

Thanks in large part to the popularity of its small to midsize jets in the U.S., Embraer has emerged as a competitor against Canada's Bombardier for the title of the world's third-biggest manufacturer of commercial planes behind U.S. giant Boeing and Europe's Airbus.

"For us, North America is — and will continue to be — the most important market in terms of the potential to sell new products here," says Paulo Cesar Silva, Embraer's president for Commercial Aviation. "Aviation in North America is about 40% of aviation in the world."

The success of Brazil's Embraer in the U.S. market is something that other developing nations that seek to undertake world-class commercial aircraft production, such as China and Russia, now only aspire to.

The commercial aviation landscape is littered with failed efforts by many nations to compete with U.S. and European plane-makers in producing planes for use in what's been the globe's top passenger aircraft market.

"Nobody would have predicted this," Richard Aboulafia of Virginia-based Teal Group, an aerospace analysis firm, says of Embraer's success. "And in dozens of other cases, they'd have been right."

Driving the popularity of E-Jets in the U.S. is their size and range, and comfort for passengers.

The E-Jets — the E170 and E175 models with seating for 70 to 88 passengers and the E190 and E195 models with room for 93 to 124 passengers — help U.S. airlines reduce their capacity to match a lower demand for travel, as fewer people are flying in these tight economic times.

To reduce capacity, airlines can cut flights or fly smaller planes. E-Jets allow them to fly smaller planes that carry fewer passengers than Boeing 737s, the best-selling aircraft in commercial aviation history, or Airbus A320s, both of which can carry 150 passengers or more.

E-Jets, Silva says, allow airlines to fly in and out of smaller cities where passenger loads aren't big enough to justify flying 737s or A320s.

At the same time, he says, the smaller E-Jets allow airlines to "improve services by providing a certain route with more frequency" during peak flying hours in the morning and evening, while carrying a smaller load in the middle of the day when fewer are flying.

There's no dreaded middle seat

For passengers, E-Jets are popular because they're big enough to stand up in as you walk down the aisle — like 737s and 320s, but unlike other smaller regional jets, such as Bombardier's competing Canadair CRJs that seat from 50 to 100 passengers or Embraer's own, smaller ERJs (short for Embraer Regional Jets).