News
Embraer believes small passenger jets will lead air traffic recovery
March 23rd 2021
Embraer Commercial Aviation marketing director Asia-Pacific, Victor Vieira dos Santos, said yesterday smaller and efficient narrow-bodies, with a capacity of up to 150 seats would be at the centre of the recovery in air travel from COVID-19. Read More » "Strategically re-establishing connections and frequencies will be a more important long-term metric in the new normal than the traditional metric of traffic volumes," Vieira dos Santos said. "Smaller, right-sized aircraft are the best way to resume or grow domestic and regional connectivity when overall passenger demand has weakened."
Vieira dos Santos said figures from China showed smaller narrow-bodies flew 13% more flights in the fourth quarter of calendar 2020 compared with the same period a year ago while wide-body flights declined 44%.
In Japan, domestic and international destinations fell to 227 in the final three months of 2020, Vieira dos Santos said, down only "slightly" from 255 12 months earlier. "This was achieved by using the existing fleet of smaller jets and turboprops, while there was a 67% drop in large wide-body flights and a 37% reduction of bigger narrow-bodies," he said.
