Embraer E-Jet

Estonian national carrier Estonian Air has received permission from the ministry of economy to replace the new Bombardiers that the airline acquired recently with cheaper planes made by Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer.

„We are in talks with a competing aircraft manufacturer aimed at reaching better terms,” is how Estonian Air president Tero Taskila commented the case.

It has been only a year when Estonian Air was handed over three new Bombardier aircraft. The airline needed new planes badly since it was in the process of removing the Saab turboprops from service and closing the lease of Boeing aircraft.

The airline also announced that it was negotiating purchase of three other Bombardier aircraft. However, when the Canadian manufacturer who knew that the airline was in dire need of new aircraft started to set demands, most of which were unacceptable, the airline’s management with the approval of the economic minister Juhan Parts started to look around for an alternative.

It found it in Embraer, a Brazilian aircraft manufacturer that was able to offer a much wider choice of aircraft. Both Embraer and Bombardier are fierce competitors since they operate in the same category of aircraft.

Embraer is no newcomer (it was founded in 1969) and is the world’s fourth largest aircraft manufacturer, one place behind Bombardier. Embraer, however is world leader in the segment of regional aviation and this is what makes it so interesting for Estonian Air.

The Estonian carrier has now decided that it will shortly lease three Embraer 170 aircraft from one European airline as a temporary measure until the manufacturer is able to deliver three new Embraer 190 aircraft.

In comment, Estonian pilot coach Rein Porro said that the main reason why Embraer is better than Bombardier is that the latter have notably less space for passengers, luggage and pilots.

Embraers have the widest body in their class and they offer more legroom. Notably, Finnair has 18 Embraer planes, LOT has 27 and Lufthansa has 35.

Although the spotlight will be on Embraer’s engine choice as it refines its next generation regional jet offering, lower profile design decisions also are on the agenda.

One issue under study is whether to add electric taxi capability as a baseline option to help reduce fuel burn through the life of the program, says Paulo Cesar de Souze e Silva, Embraer president of commercial aviation. A firm decision has not been made, he stresses.

Also under review is the use and design of winglet devices on the new aircraft.

While Embraer has set itself the goal of defining the aircraft this year, Cesar notes the company will not be artificially schedule driven. The goal remains a 2018 entry into service, however.

Talks with potential customers continue to help define the aircraft. So far, no consensus has emerged on the exact seat configuration, which could see the largest member of the family grow to about 135 seats. Whether the smallest member of the current E-Jets, the E-170, will be replaced also is not resolved.

In the evolution plan of the current E-Jet family, Cesar reported that a fuel burn improvement package will be coming online towards the end of 2012 or early in 2013. “This will bring meaningful savings for airlines, with a fuel burn improvement of about 5% being achieved for the E-175 and 3% for the E-190,” he forecast.

The improvements will come from new winglets and some cleaning of the aerodynamics, Cesar announced. “We will start to get about a 1% improvement in 2013, but will get the full amount by 2014,” he added, noting also that the modifications would not be suitable for retrofitting.

Next year will also see the introduction of increased maintenance intervals as well as an improved programme on Structural & Prognostics Health Management (SHM/PHM). Following that, in 2015, new advanced avionics features will be introduced as well as a new interior.

Baltic’s Estonian Air (OV) will switch its Tallinn (TLL) flights from London Gatwick (LGW) to London City Airport (LCY) when it steps up services next year.

The Tallinn-based carrier will end its 2X-weekly TLL-LGW in October and replace it with a new service to LCY from March 1. Initially 3X-weekly, the service will ramp up to 4X-weekly in May, then go to 6X-weekly in June.

The new service will be tied to the arrival of OV’s new 112-seater Embraer E-190, which will operate the route. OV is due to receive two E-190s by mid-2013 (ATW Daily News, Feb. 9). The new aircraft will require some modifications to handle the steeper approach path into LCY, which has a short runway and high buildings.

Speaking at the World Low Cost Airline Congress in London, OV CEO Tero Taskila said, “There are several benefits for the airline. The turnaround time in LCY is 25 min. instead of 45 min. in LGW. That adds one hr. to aircraft utilization. We also have a good agreement with LCY, so the commercial conditions are better,” Taskila said.

The carrier made the switch because statistics showed the majority of passengers on the TLL-London sector terminated their journeys in LCY, which has faster access to the city center than LGW, OV spokeswoman Ilona Eskelinen added.

Most of OV’s passengers are business travelers and LCY is a heavily business-oriented airport, located close to the city’s Canary Wharf financial district.

OV will be the only carrier from Scandinavia and the Baltic flying into LCY.

Not all models will enjoy the same efficiency gain, however. The E175’s fuel burn will drop by 5 percent, while the E190’s consumption will fall by 3 percent. Embraer plans to introduce the improvements incrementally on new-build E-Jets, at a rate of “one percent next year and more in 2014,” Silva said. The company does expect to offer a retrofit.

Further improvements planned for next year include increased maintenance intervals, as well as structural and prognostics health management. Next, in 2015, Embraer plans unspecified “advanced avionics features” and a new cabin interior, the latter available as a retrofit.

Embraer’s E-Jet upgrade plan includes a wide-ranging series of
aerodynamic, structural and systems improvements, the bulk of which also
will be available for retrofit on the current E-Jet portfolio. Embraer,
which first revealed the initiative in late January when it announced
Republic Airways’ firm order for 47 E-175s, says the changes are part of
a continuous upgrade path it has been following since the first E-Jet
models entered service in 2004.
Packages will be introduced
through 2015, although “. . . there are other things that we are
considering for 2016/2017,” says Embraer Commercial Aviation Market
Intelligence VP Claudio Camelier.
The initial element is a fuel
burn improvement package along with a series of maintenance updates, all
of which are being introduced this year.
The first fuel burn
package includes a series of aerodynamic “clean-up” features to reduce
drag, along with optimization of the environmental control (ECS) and
anti-ice systems, to reduce excessive use of engine bleed air. The
aero-package includes fillers to close drag-causing gaps in the
horizontal tail, a revised rain deflector over the cabin doors, improved
ram air doors in the lower fuselage and low-drag wheel fairings.

This package, which builds on updates developed for the larger
E-190/195 family, is already incorporated in new aircraft delivered from
January 2013.
A second fuel burn reduction package, based on
further aerodynamic clean-ups of the auxiliary power unit inlet and
anti-collision beacon as well as an all-new wingtip, will begin flight
tests in the second quarter. The new wingtip extends overall span by
around 9 ft. to 94 ft. 2 in., and replaces the existing vertical
winglet. The larger tip, which is angled with a dihedral of 45 deg.,
imposes added bending load to the wing and is therefore accompanied by
local strengthening to the wing box, skins and stub wing where the unit
attaches to the fuselage.
The added low-drag features will be
incorporated from 2014 onward, as will the first new wingtips, which
enter service that year on the E-175. The extended tip follows on the
E-190 and E-170 in 2015 and in 2016 on the E-195.
“The design has
been evaluated in the wind tunnel at transonic and subsonic conditions
which validated computational fluid dynamics simulations. We’ve also
evaluated all the low-speed characteristics, and the wind tunnel tests
have given us a high degree of confidence that the flight tests will
confirm these results,” says Camelier.
Combined, all the updates
are expected to give a 5% fuel burn benefit to the E-170 based on a 600
nm flight, while the biggest beneficiary is expected to be the E-175,
which could see fuel burn improve by as much as 5.5%. As the E-190 and
E-195 already have some of the drag reduction features, these will see
improvements of 3.5% and 4%, respectively.
The updates also
include a series of systems and avionics upgrades to lower maintenance
costs, improve reliability and optimize navigation performance. They
include longer-life LED external lights, and a revised maintenance plan
that extends the basic check interval from 6,000 flight hours to 7,500.
The extension is “based on data from experience over about 10 years, and
saves the equivalent of one basic check per aircraft over around that
period” says Commercial Aviation Programs VP Leandro Laia.
To
further reduce operating costs, Embraer’s upgrade plan also includes
installation of a prognostic health management system to monitor
equipment and anticipate failures or malfunctions. “The idea is to
transform an unscheduled maintenance event into a planned maintenance
event with less downtime and less interruption to the flight schedule,”
says Camelier, who adds that the system will be available from December
2014.
The following year, Embraer also plans to introduce a
scheduled structural health monitoring (SHM) system that involves the
installation of fatigue and corrosion sensors in hard-to-access areas of
the airframe around the aft doors. “To conduct a visual structural
inspection you have to remove the galleys, lavatory, seats, liners and
so on, but with the SHM you have electronic sensors that provide the
data,” says Camelier. Embraer estimates the SHM will reduce the time for
inspections by 128 worker hours.
Larger overhead bins in the cabin and a wireless inflight entertainment system also are due to be introduced from 2015.