Less than two years after taking delivery of the first E190-E2, Helvetic Airways completed receiving an order for 12 regional jets placed with Embraer.
On Sunday, August 15th, the E195-E2 HB-AZL registration was delivered to the Swiss carrier and traveled to Europe, landing in Zurich on Tuesday, the 17th.
With recent deliveries, Helvetic has become the world’s largest operator of Embraer’s new E2 jet family, surpassing Azul, which has nine E195-E2 model aircraft (see table).
This is a milestone for the airline, one of the most satisfied customers with the new generation of the Brazilian jetliner.
“We are very satisfied with our new Embraer fleet,” said Helvetic Airways CEO Tobias Pogorevc. “They perfectly meet our needs in terms of their capacity, their range and their environmental credentials, which are all among our prime priorities.”
Helvetic is the operator of the first generation E190, of which it had 11 aircraft. Currently, only four of these planes remain in the airline’s fleet.
The carrier is also currently the only one in the world to have two models of the new series – there are eight E190-E2 with 110 seats and four E195-E2 with 134 seats.
Originally, Helvetic planned to receive 12 units of the E190-E2, but faced with increased passenger demand, it opted to convert four of them to the higher-capacity variant.
The company invested $750 million in fleet renewal and also has the option to purchase another 12 aircraft. However, Pogorevc stated that given the current scenario affected by the pandemic, “we do not plan to exercise these in the near future.”
| Customer | E190-E2 | E195-E2 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Helvetic Airways | 8 | 4 | 12 |
| Azul | 9 | 9 | |
| Air Astana | 5 | 5 | |
| Binter Canarias | 5 | 5 | |
| KLM Cityhopper | 4 | 4 | |
| Widerøe | 3 | 3 | |
| Air Peace | 3 | 3 | |
| Belavia | 3 | 3 | |
| Air Kiribati | 1 | 1 | |
| Total | 17 | 28 | 45 |
