Helvetic Airways Upgrades Embraer E2 Order

Helvetic Airways has signed a commitment with Embraer to convert four of their remaining firm orders to the larger E195-E2 aircraft. The original order, for 12 E190-E2s with purchase rights for a further 12, and conversion rights to E195-E2, was announced in September 2018. Embraer has so far delivered five E190-E2s to Helvetic Airways, and all deliveries of the remaining seven aircraft, including the four E195-E2s, will be completed before the end of 2021, with the majority in the first half of 2021. 

The remaining firm order for the seven aircraft to be delivered has a value of USD 480 million, based on current list prices. With all the purchase rights being exercised, the deal has a list price of USD 1.25 billion. 

In a move to diversify fleet capacity, Helvetic Airways will configure the E195-E2 with 134 seats in a single class layout, while their E190-E2s have 110 seats. This gives Helvetic Airways the ability to alter their offering for airlines and other customers and to meet the actual passenger demand for each mission; very useful in the current environment where demand is seeing significant fluctuations. This ability, to dynamically ‘rightsize’ to meet their customers’ demand, is operationally possible due to the common E2 cockpit allowing flight crews to operate across all E2 variants.

The new E195-E2 provides greater capacity, whilst being more sustainable and quiet; the E195-E2 burns 10% less fuel per flight, emits 30% less CO2 per passenger, and is 48% quieter than the E190 aircraft it replaces in Helvetic’s fleet.

Helvetic Airways CEO Tobias Pogorevc, said “The Embraer E195-E2 strikes a good balance between seating capacity, range, fuel consumption and environmentally friendly operation. With between 120 and 150 seats, it has virtually no competition in the regional aircraft segment. Operating a single fleet – in terms of cockpit – with varying seating capacities will enable us to expand our organisation’s operational flexibility and autonomy.”

“Helvetic Airways is powered by a high performance culture, the airline already manages to deliver greater fuel and emissions efficiency from its current E2s than Embraer advertises; and the E2 is already the most efficient single-aisle aircraft family on the market”, said Martyn Holmes, Vice President Europe, Russia and Central Asia at Embraer Commercial Aviation. “Innovative and successful airlines operating our jets is the greatest advertisement for our aircraft, and acting now to ensure the best capacity diversity for their fleet sets Helvetic Airways up for further success, even in these challenging times.” 

For nearly two decades, Embraer’s innovative E-Jets family has been transforming commercial aviation. It is the industry’s most successful line of 70-to-150-seat passenger jets designed specifically for this capacity segment. The program has logged in excess of 1,900 orders to date from more than 100 customers. Some 80 airlines currently fly Embraer E-Jets. The global E-Jet fleet has accumulated more than 30 million flight hours, with an average mission completion rate of 99.9%. The versatile airplanes are flying with low-cost, regional and mainline carriers.