Bombardier, Embraer go head-to-head at Farnborough

Embraer upped the stakes in the ongoing regional aircraft battle between it and Bombardier on Monday, with the Brazilian aerospace firm’s new commercial aircraft chief questioning his Canadian rival’s recent moves.

John Slattery, who only took the top job of Embraer Commercial Aircraft on 1 July, asked what kind of message the sale of a large chunk of the CSeries programme was sending to the market.

“They have already offloaded [part] of the CSeries programme to Quebec and it sounds like they are in talks to offload more equity ownership,” Slattery said at the Farnborough Air Show.

“That in itself probably causes some customers cause for concern about the OEM’s own view of that programme.”

Bombardier was quick to respond, with president of its commercial aircraft arm Fred Cromer saying they were receiving the “opposite reaction” from customers.

“Because of the partnership we have put in place and [having] secured the liquidity we need, this has given the airline community the confidence not only in Bombardier but also in the CSeries programme,” Cromer said.

Embraer appears to have changed tack on marketing its E195-E2 regional jet at Farnborough, with pre-show briefings reportedly focused on attacking the operating costs of Bombardier’s direct competitor, the newcomer CS100.

Both aircraft use remarkably similar geared turbofan engines from Pratt & Whitney, although Embraer says its higher passenger capacity on a similar weight gives the E195-E2 a 10% better fuel burn on a per-seat basis.

Bombardier has hit back at that claim as well, saying its CSeries aircraft are, in fact, 10% better on fuel burn than the EJet E2 series.