One aircraft manufacturer with a very prominent presence at the latest edition of the MEBAA executive aviation show, which took place in Dubai, December 10-12, 2024, was Embraer.
Keen to showcase its product range to prospects in the Middle East region, Embraer brought to the show two of its best-selling jets, namely the Phenom 300E and the Praetor 600.
AeroTime had a chance to take a peek inside these two aircraft and engage in a long and fascinating conversation with Stephen Friedrich, Chief Commercial Officer of Embraer Executive Jets, in order to learn more about the product strategy of the Brazilian manufacturer’s executive aviation arm.
Friedrich kicked off our conversation with a short introduction about how the Embraer Executive Jets’ current product range came about.
“In the early 2000s, based upon the success of the ERJ145 and 135, we looked and said, ‘there’s a really interesting market for business aviation, and there hasn’t been a lot of innovation there lately’. So, the thought was, let’s test it out. We repurposed ERJ135 into the first Legacy, and that became the Legacy 600, and then came the Legacy 650.”
On Embraer’s product strategy
At the moment, though, Embraer is focused on the Phenom and Praetor family of purpose-designed aircraft.
“During that time, based upon that success and initial demand and desirability of that aircraft, we realized that there was an opportunity to have a couple of clean sheet aircraft designed in the 21st century, and we focused in on the entry level and light jets with the Phenom. When the Phenom 100 came out, it was met with tremendous acceptance and success, because it was a product that nobody else was really doing at that point. Then we came up with the Phenom 300, which has been, for the last 12 years, the best-selling light jet in the world, in terms of units. And then we also developed what is now the Praetor 500 and 600.”
Talking about the flagship Praetor jet family, Friedrich delved into one of Embraer’s strengths: being able to cross-share innovation and technology across the different platforms and divisions of the company, whether it’s military, commercial or executive aircraft.
“[The development of the Praetor] was really interesting for us, because we took the technology that we had developed for the military with the C390 on the fly-by-wire system, which was in turn an iteration of the AMX project, a light attack aircraft developed back in the late 1980s. So, we took that fly-by-wire system, put it in the C390, next we put it in the E2 for commercial jets. And then we said, ‘You know what? No one’s ever done this before. We believe we have a way to put that into a super and mid-size aircraft with the Praetor 500 and 600’.”
Friedrich then enumerated some of the elements that set the Praetor apart within its category.
“It’s an extremely advanced system, again born from the military. It’s a military grade system. It’s got the redundancies built in, it’s got that tremendous safety factor, but most importantly for us, is what we’ve been able to do inside that cockpit with the HUD, the Enhanced Vision System. These are all things that you would normally only find a much larger aircraft, but we brought that to the super-mid category and the market demand for that aircraft has been extremely gratifying.”
One of the notable aspects of Embraer’s product strategy is that it offers a ladder for prospective customers to upgrade progressively across the product range, from entry level to super-mid-size, as their needs evolve.
“When you take a look at the people who are buying both the Phenoms and the Praetors, each has its place in the market,” Friedrich suggested. “But the interesting thing is, from a performance standpoint, Praetors can really go to the same places the Phenoms can. That was what we wanted to have. We took this industry-leading technology and said, ‘How can we make sure that we have best-in-class performance?’. And that’s really using the innovativeness, the engineering expertise and prowess that we have, that was born from ITA and is now part of Embraer, and we’ve expanded that globally. When you take a look at our core competencies, that’s innovative engineering.”
Understanding market segments
Friedrich insisted on the idea of Embraer’s product range as a continuum, with plenty of commonalities across aircraft types, from the small Phenom 100 all the way to the Praetor 600.
“This is the reason why we started with entry level, up through super-mid. We do have customers who move up through the system. It’s very common to see people who buy a [Phenom] 100 move up to a 300. Now, if you are an owner-pilot, of course, single pilot is great. Now when you move from a 300 to [Praetor] 500 or 600, that’s a dual pilot aircraft, so it’s a little bit different, but what we found is that certain of our clients decide they will be flying less in the cockpit themselves and they transition to the back of the cabin. That’s when you see them move from a [Phenom] 300 to a [Praetor] 500, because they have the same layout. It’s just, with the Praetor 500, you have a stand-up cabin and more range, obviously.”
He added: “That’s what often happens, people continue to use this as a tool for productivity. They say, ‘You know what? I need more range. I need more capacity’. And that’s why they’ll move up from a [Phenom] 100 to a 300, and next they move up from to a [Praetor] 500 or 600.”
This gradient across aircraft sizes also works at the lower end of the range, with the Phenom 100 becoming an aspirational aircraft for owner-pilots who move up out of turboprops or even piston-engine aircraft.
“Some suddenly say, ‘I want to fly a jet, I want to have the speed, I want to have the convenience’. We do see a lot of that on the Phenom 100 and 300 of course, which is the performance leader for single pilot operations, as defined in terms of speed, range, payload, as well as the ability to go into smaller airports and deliver time savings. If you only could fly into large, commercial airports, it would not necessarily be convenient. The benefit is when you can land at smaller, even uncontrolled airports. When you talk about what that aircraft does for a single pilot aircraft, it is incredible.” Friedrich said.
As for the Praetor family of aircraft, Friedrich detailed the factors that make many private jet users prefer them over larger, longer-range jets.
“In many cases, whether they’re private individuals, high-net worth or corporate flight departments that fly the Globals, the G700s, the [Falcon] 8xs – by the way, all fantastic aircraft – they suddenly realize they don’t need that range, or necessarily that cabin for the number of passengers on board. That’s where you see them moving into the Praetor 600. We’ve had tremendous acceptance from ultra-high net worth to begin with, and now the corporate flight departments and large corporations, both public and private, are saying ‘this is the aircraft for me’ – the Praetor 500 in particular. And the 600 does everything well.”
Range, one of the key selling points of the large executive jets, turns out not to be such an essential feature for most customers, according to Friedrich, since most missions are within its 4,000-mile flight envelope.
“You can go on a Praetor 500 corner to corner in the US. There’s a lot of internal demand in the US and there’s a lot of internal demand in Europe as well. Because of the range and capability, customers have adopted the Praetor 600 in droves in Latin America. We are seeing very significant demand coming out of Latin America right now, because it can go from Sao Paulo to Miami. In fact, it was designed specifically for that! It also goes from London to New York and, of course, London to Dubai.”
“Even if you need to go to, let’s say, Australia, you take a technical stop somewhere. I see the 600s going back and forth from the West Coast to Hawaii down to Australia. You can take a technical stop in Alaska and get to Tokyo. We’ve had several customers this past year who have done trips around the world in the 600. They got to go everywhere they wanted,” added Friedrich.
He also praised the economics and operational versatility of the Praetors as two key selling points.
“It does a great job. So, a lot of corporations and ultra-high net worth have been looking at it, saying, ‘This does everything I need, very productively. It gets into all the airports I want to go to’. And the economics are outstanding – a quarter to a third of what you would pay for an ultra-long-range plane. From a finance standpoint, people look at that and they’re like, ‘wait, I get all of the productivity I need. I get everything I want with this aircraft, and it costs me less’. So again, it’s very cost effective, and its capability and its versatility to get into these tight airports are really what people appreciate.”
For a while, Embraer also offered an executive version of its E190 airliner, which it called ‘Lineage’, but this was discontinued, as it never reached beyond a few select customers.
“It is a very niche market, just a handful of transactions per year. Everyone loved to look at the Lineage…and then they bought a Praetor!” said Friedrich. “We found where our expertise is, the clean sheet design. Derivatives are great, and especially from an engineering perspective, you sit there and say, ‘Well, if I can build it once and again, use it for something else’. But the reality is, that’s not what the market wanted. We saw a greater acceptance and utility was really on the super-mid segment.”
Actually, the Lineage served as the platform of choice for a number of truly outlandish fantasy cabin concepts, devised by Embraer’s head designer Jay Beever and his team.
While the discontinuation of the Lineage means those designs never became a reality, Beever’s team at Embraer has continued to deliver top-notch designs for the manufacturer’s current product range, which, in this case, have actually been implemented.
“Jay does some fantastic, just fantastic designs. Jay’s real expertise and his genius, besides the fact that he makes it look beautiful, is his innovativeness and the maintainability on the interior, to figure out how to make it simple and then to maintain it. We can fix anything inside that cabin in 30 minutes or less. That’s the idea, the fact that as technology evolves, you don’t see the technology when you’re in the cabin, it’s underneath. As technology changes, we can go in and remove the hardware that’s there, replace it, and it doesn’t impact your interior in any way, shape or form. It’s very easy, very simple, to maintain and upgrade. That’s really where I think Jay’s brilliance is. The fact that it’s beautiful as well, it’s like icing on the cake.”
Friedrich returned to the topic of the aircraft as a generator of value for the user:
“You’ll see that it’s comfortable on board the aircraft and, when you combine it with our engineering expertise on how to make the aircraft quieter and how to make the cabin altitude lower and you add the connectivity on board, you really have an aircraft that has tremendous utility and productivity and that’s why corporations are using it. They’re saying ‘You know what? I can do three or four city stops in a day with my team, whether it’s looking at a store, a factory, doing a road show for financial services…’”
What’s next for Embraer Executive Jets?
In fact, Embraer is so confident in its current value proposition that, for the time being, its focus will be in building upon the core strengths of the Phenom and Praetor families.
“The key for us right now is to continue to ramp up product production. We’ve made tremendous investments in our physical plant. We’ve invested over US$90 million just for executive alone and we continue to build out our facilities, both in Florida and Gaviao Peixoto, Brazil. I think that’s key. We have manufacturing capabilities geographically dispersed, because that enables us to always be building aircraft, regardless of what goes on.”
While Embraer has its roots in Brazil, its executive jet operation has a very strong US footprint, with its main service center located in Melbourne, Florida, and other centers in Dallas, Texas, and Mesa, Arizona, as well as in Sorocaba, Brazil and Le Bourget, in France. Embraer also has an authorized service center network, covering another 65 facilities globally.
“No matter where you go, you’ll be able to get your aircraft serviced,” Friedrich said. “More importantly, the logistics that we have put in place to move parts globally is second to none. We’re using next generation logistics in terms of software and management systems that enable us to respond really quickly to our customers’ needs. If we don’t have a physical presence at an airport, we have over 50 trucks in the US, with technicians who can travel to you.”
The ubiquity and availability of service is another important leg of Embraer’s value proposition, as Friedrich noted.
“You know, the industry leading technology we develop enables us to offer the best-in-class performance and cabin comfort. That’s all great, but more importantly, we have a service center network globally that can support that aircraft. Because, yes, aircraft needs service, and we want to make it convenient and easy to access.”
In terms of future growth, while the US remains by far its largest market, Friedrich says that Embraer is taking a global perspective:
“The US has the largest installed base. Latin America happens to have the second largest installed base and has seen great growth. Europe is always a solid performer. And then where we see some real opportunity right now is here in the Middle East. I’m very optimistic for this region. I see a real transformation coming here, as businesses and the economy continue to evolve. We’re seeing a lot more intra-regional flying. In the past, it was always in and out of the region. I’m very excited to see the investment that goes into all of the Gulf Coast states and I think there’s some real business opportunities here, in the broader economy outside of aviation, and aviation is here to help support this growth. That’s why we’re at MEBAA at moment,” Friedrich said.
Meanwhile, he was also keeping an eye on markets further east.
“We also are very optimistic about the Indian subcontinent and in the rest of the greater Asia-Pacific. When you take a look at what’s going on through from Australia to Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Bangladesh… it’s amazing!”
A major matter of concern for the executive aviation industry is the environmental backlash, particularly in areas like Europe. Here’s what Friedrich told us on this matter:
“Sustainability is important to everyone. Don’t ever underestimate our commitment to the environment, to sustainability and governance. We’re being very focused on what we can do to reduce our carbon footprint. Almost all of our manufacturing facilities are run off renewable energy. We continue to invest in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). For example, we use it in Melbourne and at our facilities in Brazil as well. We’re constantly looking at increasing the feed stocks and the refining capability. We’re also very excited with what’s happening in the US, with more refining capability coming onboard, and of course, high-bypass engines are the most efficient use of petroleum products to create power, far more than anything else.”
“We’re also using more and more sustainable materials inside of our interiors. So, sustainability, environmental impact, is at the forefront of what we do. It’s not just about the fact that this is a response to what’s going on in the media and society. This is good for the planet, but more importantly, it’s good for business.” added Friedrich, before concluding on a positive note.
“No matter how you look at this, what we’re doing is a beneficial product, both from an environmental and a business standpoint. So, we’re all in on that.”
