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Charter, FIFO and special missions operator Cobham has welcomed its third Embraer E190 to its fleet, with the new jet performing its first passenger flight this week.
Cobham first announced its fleet renewal program, which included the return of E190s to its fleet in 2019 as it expanded its work in the fly-in-fly-out (FIFO) market.
Today, Cobham utilises its fleet of E190s and Bombardier Q400s for both VIP charter and FIFO operations, largely in support of Australia’s mining, oil and gas industries.
“Since we launched our fleet renewal program, we have welcomed five new Q400s, with this latest E190 bringing our number of these aircraft types to three,” said Tim Pirga, business development director at Cobham.
The operator is gearing up to welcome a further two aircraft – its fourth E190 and sixth Q400 – in the coming months.
The 140-seat E190 offers a wide aisle in a 2 x 2 seat configuration.
Cobham said the aircraft offers increased service quality due to shorter flight times, full passenger uplift in hot conditions and reliability that ensures minimal disruption to FIFO schedules.
“Continually improving our service delivery is essential to our growth. We are excited to bring the benefits of a modern, flexible aircraft fleet to FIFO clients in Australia,” Pirga said.
Last month, Cobham extended its signed agreement with Embraer for repairs and maintenance on its fleet of three E190s.
The news came after Cobham signed a two-year contract extension with mining company IGO to provide FIFO services to its Nova nickel, copper and cobalt mine in WA’s Goldfields region, using Cobham’s fleet of E190s and Bombardier Q400s.
According to Embraer, the newly-extended Pool Program agreement with Cobham will see the operator covered for full repairs of components and parts, airframe maintenance, and given unlimited access to a large stock of components at the company’s distribution centres.
Australian operators are offered service and support via Embraer’s Asia-Pacific facility, based in Singapore.
The Brazilian planemaker said through the extended Pool Program agreement, Cobham will benefit from significant savings on repair and inventory costs, as well as a reduction in required warehousing space and resources required for repair management.
Embraer said the charter operator will also ultimately be provided with guaranteed performance levels and highlighted that its 12-month average reliability factors of the global E-Jet fleet in the region stands at 99.97 per cent completion rate, and a schedule reliability of 99.59 per cent.
