Helvetic Airways, a Swiss regional airline, has signed a commitment with Embraer to convert four of its remaining firm orders for the E190-E2 to the larger E195-E2 aircraft. The original order, for 12 E190-E2s with purchase rights for a further 12, and conversion rights to E195-E2, was announced in September 2018. Embraer has so far delivered five E190-E2s to Helvetic Airways, and all deliveries of the remaining seven aircraft, including the four E195-E2s, will be completed before the end of 2021, with the majority in the first half of 2021.
The remaining firm order for the seven aircraft to be delivered has a value of US$480 million, based on current list prices. With all the purchase rights being exercised, the deal has a list price of US$1.25 billion.
As Helvetic Airways is seeking to diversify its fleet capacity, the airline will configure the E195-E2 with 134 seats in a single-class layout, and the E190-E2s with 110 seats. This mix of capacity enables the airline to alter its offering to meet the actual passenger demand for each flight and respond swiftly to fluctuations in demand. This ability, to dynamically ‘rightsize’ to meet customers’ demand, is operationally possible due to the common E2 cockpit, which allows flight crews to operate across all E2 variants.
Helvetic Airways CEO, Tobias Pogorevc, stated, “The Embraer E195-E2 strikes a good balance between seating capacity, range, fuel consumption and environmentally friendly operation. With between 120 and 150 seats, it has virtually no competition in the regional aircraft segment. Operating a single fleet – in terms of cockpit – with varying seating capacities will enable us to expand our organisation’s operational flexibility and autonomy.”
