KUALA LUMPUR: Brazilian multinational aerospace manufacturer Embraer S.A expects Malaysia will operate 60 new commercial aircraft with a capacity of less than 150 seats over the next decade.
President and chief executive officer (commercial aviation business unit) Arjan Meijer believes Embraer's E195-E2 will be the leading aircraft best suited to operate in Malaysia by 2030.
"We expect there will be a demand of up to 60 new aircraft in Malaysia up to 150 seats over the next 10 years. Installing a fleet of E195-E2s brings the potential to connect up to 110 destinations to boost connectivity within Malaysia and neighbouring countries.
"The enhanced connectivity could stimulate an increase of 5.5 million passengers in the next 10 years with the deployment of the E2 jets," he told the New Straits Times in an interview recently.
Meijer said the improved connectivity could also create about 25,000 jobs to support 5.0 per cent growth of the local aviation sector with an economic multiplier value of approximately US$700 million potential gross domestic product contribution with the deployment of the E2 Family.
With a range of 2600nm (around 5.5 hours of flight time), the E195-E2 is the largest of the three aircraft in the E-Jets E2 family.
The aircraft entered into service end of 2019 following type certification from three major world regulatory authorities – the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the Brazilian Civil Aviation Agency (BCAA).
It is currently operated by Dutch carrier KLM, which has 53 Embraer E-Jets in its fleet, Brazilian carrier Azul Airlines, which operates 55 E-Jets and flies to more than 100 destinations in the country, as well as airlines in Switzerland, Spain, Belarus and Nigeria.
According to Meijer, Embraer has two strategic goals for Malaysia - to contribute to the country's economic growth by enhancing regional connections and promoting sustainability.
"We believe we can contribute significantly with our planes. We also look at what value we can bring to airlines by helping them better their yields.
"There is a huge potential to deploy this asset (E2 jet) to better Malaysia's connectivity and boost the 12th Malaysia Plan to enhance the aerospace sector," he said.
Head of commercial aviation for Embraer in Asia Pacific Raul Villaron projected that Asia demand of the 150-seat segment could represent about one-third of the global market over the next 20 years.
"We estimate a global demand of about 11,000 units of aircraft in the sub-150 seat category. Of the total, about 40 per cent of the demand is expected to stem from the Asia Pacific," he said.
Villaron said Embraer has considerable interest in increasing its market share in Malaysia, citing that the company has a large presence in Australia, Japan, and Vietnam.
"We see there is potential for the right-sizing of aircraft, complementing the B737-800 or providing a better proposition to the turboprops in Malaysia.
"Thus, this allows airlines operating turboprops to increase its level of service to passengers, giving more range comfort and significantly less cabin noise.
"We believe the E2 provides a similar seat cost to a larger narrow-body. In addition, the E2 brings flexibility to an airline, enabling them to optimise their capacity and deploy the best-suited aircraft for its various routes and better the yields for airlines," he said.