MonTREAL – Bombardier says its regional jets and new CSeries commercial aircraft will retain their competitive advantages even after Brazilian rival Embraer puts more fuel-efficient engines on its E-Jet family of aircraft.
Embraer this week said it plans to use a variant of the Pratt & Whitney engine that will power the CSeries on a “second generation” of regional jets beginning in 2018. It will also change the wings and add a fly-by-wire system as it aims for “double-digit” improvements in fuel burn, emissions, noise and maintenance costs.
Left undecided is stretching the largest E-195 plane to go up against Bombardiers 110- to 149-seat CSeries.
Philippe Poutissou, vice-president of marketing at Bombardier commercial aircraft, said its CRJ planes have a 16 per cent fuel burn advantage over the Embraer planes.
“Although a re-engine will certainly get you an improvement, theyre playing catch-up,” he said in an interview.
Some industry observers believe Embraers long-awaited move could boost pressure on its Canadian competitor.
David Tyerman of Canaccord Genuity said putting new engines on the current sizes of E-Jets wont have much impact on the CSeries, but will be more competitive against the CRJ.
“It will be interesting to see what Bombardiers response is,” he said in an email, noting that the regional jet market is becoming crowded with Russias Sukhoi Superjet 100, Japans Mitsubishi regional jet, CRJs and E-Jets.
“Bombardier and Embraer have competitive advantages due to their large installed fleets, but Bombardier will have to take a hard look at the economics to determine any responses in this space.”
Poutissou said the Montreal-based aerospace manufacturer is watching Embraers moves closely and will continue to adjust its offering as it did a few years ago with the introduction of the CRJ1000.
“Well look at the spectrum of things that we could do but what theyre talking about is still several years away and depending on the scope of change that they go after obviously at the expense of commonality we think that the CRJ is a very good solution for the near-term.”
He said sales of CRJ700 and 900 planes are double those of the E-170-175s. Delta Airways recently seleced CRJ900s over Embraer when it decided to renew its 76-seat fleet.
Adding seats to the E-195 would put Embraer into competition with the CSeries, but Poutissou said its cleansheet design benefits from a new airframe built from light-weight composite materials, new systems, new engine, more capacity and longer range.
He added that Embraers choice of engines reaffirms Bombardiers selecion of Pratt for the CSeries and follows similar decisions by Boeing and Airbus to add new engines on their marque narrowbody aircraft.
“We saw re-engined aircraft offered by our other competitors. This is just another piece of the puzzle from a market that had a fairly comfortable duopoly.”
Bombardier booked 481 net aircraft orders last year, up from 249 a year ago. Most of them were for business aircraft.
Walter Spracklin of RBC Capital Markets said Bombardiers order outlook remains promising this year, with a pickup expected in both CSeries and regional jet orders.
“However, we anxiously await the elusive Chinese CSeries order, which would cement the aircraft in the region,” he wrote in a report.
