Boeing announced on Thursday the official name of the joint venture with aircraft maker Embraer: Boeing Brasil – Commercial. The new division will be responsible for manufacturing and marketing the E-Jets, the family of commercial aircraft developed by Embraer and operating in the 70 to 140 seat segment.
The surprise in the choice of the new name came from the suppression of the term “Embraer”, changed by the name “Brasil”, with the letter “S” as written in the Portuguese language. It was the solution found by the US planemaker to maintain some connection with the country of origin of the jets. The new company should officially start operating in 2020 with about 10,000 of the company’s 18,500 employees.
Unlike Bombardier, which passed its line of CSeries jets at a symbolic rate to keep 50% of the project, Embraer sold its commercial jet division for $ 4.2 billion, but retained only a minority stake of 20%.
New designations still mysterious
It is not yet known how Boeing will call the Embraer aircraft, now named E175, E190 and E195, for example. It is also unclear whether they will be part of the US manufacturer’s portfolio as did Airbus which incorporated CSeries as the A220 model. The logical solution seems to be to follow the same solution that would provide a Boeing endorsement to its customers.
Embraer “saved” Boeing
The joint venture between Boeing and Embraer continues to generate controversy in Brazil. The negotiation, which also involves a second partnership in sales of the KC-390 military jet (but with Brazilian company leadership), was considered harmful by the military in an internal report by the Brazilian Air Force revealed in recent days.
In the document, the Brazilian military, which founded Embraer 50 years ago, argues that the company’s aircraft will save Boeing in the competition with Airbus. They also said that the sale of the division should end the defense projects and also deplete the Brazilian manufacturer’s innovation capacity and staff.
