Embraer Executive Jets positive about India

With the positive moves by the Narendra Modi Government at the Centre, Embraer Executive Jets is enthusiastic about the prospects for the aviation industry. The market for business jets in India, as in the US, is likely to grow steadily, though not as high a rate, but at a healthy rate, according to Claudio Camelier, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Asia-Pacific and Middle East, Embraer Executive Jets.

On the eve of Aero India 2015, Camelier said: “India is a country that has the widest portfolio of Embraer Executive Jets, from the Phenom 100E to the Lineage 1000, with 20 jets in operation.” The aircraft in India are: one Lineage 1000, four Legacy 650, six Legacy 600 including five VIP transport, one Phenom 300, six Phenom 100/Phenom 100E and two ERJ 135/shuttle. Among airliners, Air Costa operates four E-Jets ( two E-170 and two E-190) and has firm orders for 25 E-190 E2s and 25 E-195 E2s.

In 2013 and 2014, the Phenom 300 jet was the world’s most delivered business jet. In the market it has over 310 units of Phenom 100 and over 240 units of Phenom 300. At Aero India 2015, Embraer showcased Phenom 300, belonging to Joy Alukkas Group. In the past five years, Embraer has had a good run to take the number one slot in market share at 35 per cent followed by Bombardier at 26 per cent, Hawker Beechcraft (no longer in operation as one entity) 16 per cent, Dassault nine per cent, Cessna seven per cent, Gulfstream three per cent and others four per cent.

In the Asia-Pacific region, the main markets are India, Indonesia and Australia, while there is considerable slow down in China. India has 20 Embraer Executive Jets, Indonesia 28 (eight light and 20 large jets), China 21 (one light and 20 large jets) and Australia five (three light and two large jets). The point of concern for Embraer has been China where the company is assessing whether to hold on to its facility at Harbin that manufactures the Legacy 650. “We have capacity in Brazil and we are still assessing the situation,” said Camelier.

Giving global figures of EEJ fleet deliveries, Camelier said that from 2010 when it peaked to 145, there has been a slump. The deliveries for 2011 and 2012 were 99 each year, in 2013 the figure was 119 and in 2014 it stod at 116. Indicating that there was slow recovery, he attributed several reasons for the low offtake, one of them being too many pre-owned aircraft up for sale. The estimate was about 2,000 aircraft of which nearly 500 would be less than 10 years old. The counter-challenge for the pre-owned market could be positioning new aircraft for its low maintenance, state-of-theart avionics, operational efficiency and other features. In countries like India, there were other issues such as of infrastructure evident by the absence of fixed based operators (FBOs) as also taxation and regulatory issues that were hampering offtake.

However, he said the company was hopeful of better prospects considering that India with an anticipated GDP growth rate of 6.7 per cent and China with 6.5 per cent will have a positive impact. The market forecast for the period 2015 to 2024 was 9,250 units worldwide of all business jet aircraft and Asia-Pacific would account for 570 aircraft and China 835 aircraft in the hope that the economy will bounce back.