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on show Legacy 600 demonstrator PT-TKD on the ground at the Gold Coast during its recent Australian sales tour. (Gerard Frawley)
Legacy 600 leads Embraer Australian bizjet push
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Embraer Executive Jets has begun a big push to boost its presence in Australia with the recent launching of an Australian sales office, the visit to Sydney and Melbourne of a Phenom 300 cabin mockup, and a national tour by a Legacy 600 demonstrator.
“The main reason why we opened the office in Sydney earlier this year and we’re doing these demo tours is we want to increase our presence, we need to show the product,” Jose Eduardo Costas, Embraer Executive Jets VP for sales and marketing Asia Pacific, said during the Legacy 600 demonstration tour. “We need to bring the product, we need to expand our presence, we need to show the product. ” While Embraer is well known in Australia for its E-Jet, Brasilia and Bandeirante jet and regional airliners, its executive jet line is less well known. “Business jets are not well known,” said Costa, “and that’s the reason we are doing this promotion and presenting the product to the market, and having a stronger presence in the region. It is the only way to become more visible. ” If it is less known for corporate aircraft in Australia, that is perhaps because Embraer’s diversification into the business jet field has has been as rapid as it has been successful. It announced it was developing a business jet version of its 30-seat class ERJ‑135 regional jet in July 2000, with European and US certification for what would later be renamed the Legacy 600 following in mid 2002. Since then around 150 Legacy 600s have been delivered, making it a successful program in its own right, but also laying the foundation for a family of business jets that now stretches from the six-seat Phenom 100 very light jet to the Lineage 1000 corporate jet variant of the E-190 airliner. Today, the order backlog for executive jets stands at US$6. 5 billion.
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It is the base model Phenom 100 and slightly larger eight-seat Phenom 300 that have been the great successes thus far, with more than 800 of both models sold. Deliveries of the Phenom 100 began late last year, and so far at least two are on order for Australian customers. The first is due to be delivered to Australia next year, following on from the type gaining CASA type certification in July (this was largely a paperwork exercise, but Embraer says the process went very smoothly).
Embraer’s Australian presence was significantly expanded with the February appointment of ex Qantas 747 captain Brett MacLachlan as Sydney based sales director with responsibility for Australia and New Zealand (plus The Philippines, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan). As a former Royal Flight of Dubai pilot and director of operations, then as director of aviation operations for a Sydney based ‘high net worth individual’, MacLachlan brought to Embraer his extensive experience of not just flying corporate jets, but in evaluating and purchasing corporate aircraft, from the BBJ to 747-400. He had also served on Embraer’s pilot advisory board.
MacLachlan and Costa took the 13-seat Legacy 600 on an extensive sales tour of Australia and New Zealand in August, visiting Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Auckland, Sydney, Brisbane and Darwin, which they say generated two good Australian sales prospects and one in New Zealand.
“That doesn’t mean we have a sale,” Costa said, who remarked the Australian visit was “well worth it” for the “quality” of interested parties who looked at the aircraft. “That would never be triggered without bringing the aircraft. ” The aircraft that they were showing was a brand new machine destined for a US customer who was happy to delay delivery for a few months to allow Embraer to use it as a demonstrator. After Australia it headed to the Asian Aerospace trade show in Hong Kong.
Later this year Embraer hopes to bring a Phenom 100 on an Australian sales tour, although it is yet to confirm dates.
Embraer is also in the final stages of evaluating maintenance companies to serve as support centres for Embraer Executive Jets in Australia, with sites on the east and west coasts anticipated. This will be separate to the support arrangements in place for Australian Embraer airliner fleets.
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