Revealed on Monday, Republic Airlines’ cut of 31 orders for the E175 jet surprised amid new orders from the E2 family.
When questioned, Embraer told Flight Global that the decision was in agreement with the customer. “Terms on this legacy order from 2018 were no longer suitable for either party,” said the Brazilian planemaker.
In 2018, Republic Airlines, which provides services to major US airlines, had placed an order for 106 E175s, six of which have already been delivered. With the review, 69 aircraft remained pending delivery.
Embraer also saw a positive aspect in the loss of orders as “this frees up urgently needed slots for E195-E2 and E190-E2 in 2023 and 2024”, it said in the same statement.
The E190-E2, however, has only 20 firm orders, 17 of which have already been delivered. The E195-E2, on the other hand, already has 227 aircraft on order, with 188 to be delivered. Despite this, production of the E2 family remains slow: in 2022, only six jets had been delivered by September.
Lack of pilots
The decrease in order from Republic Airlines, an Indianapolis-based company, may have been caused by a shortage of manpower, especially crew, in the US.
Regional airlines are under pressure due to rising fuel prices and inflation in the US, which has reduced the purchasing power of crew members, who have demanded readjustments.
Republic earlier this month announced a pay increase on pilot contracts in an attempt to address the issue. Skywest, another massive customer of Embraer’s E175s, decided to postpone the delivery of new jets due to the lack of pilots, especially captains.
The new aircraft are only expected to be delivered between the end of 2023 and 2024. There are eight Skywest E175s pending delivery so far.
Embraer had scheduled a conference to talk about the results of the 3rd quarter this Friday, but postponed the event to next Monday, the 14th.
