EMBRAER Unveils New Commercial Jetliner

Christened with champagne by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, EMBRAER, the world’s fourth-largest airplane maker, unveiled its new mid-size airliner in an effort to capture markets that use big commercial aircraft at the expense of costly operations.

At a price tag of $30 million per unit, the EMBRAER 190 can seat up to 108 passengers. JetBlue Airways Corporation, a U.S. company, has already bought a hundred of those planes.

EMBRAER has just received purchase order for ten additional jetliners from another company, but the company refused to reveal the buyer’s name. JetBlue has the option of purchasing one hundred more EMBRAER 190s, while Air Canada is negotiating the purchase of 45 of those aircraft.

“Comfort is very important in the U.S. market. The first time I came here to talk about the EMBRAER 190, I looked at the plane and said, ‘it’s this plane or nothing’,” JetBlue President David Neeleman remembered.

Airlines prefer the EMBRAER 190 because passengers can take a first-class flight in an aircraft whose operations are 10 percent cheaper than bigger airliners built by Boeing and Airbus.