During the Jet Expo 2008 the Jets.ru reporter met with Colin Steven – Embraer Executive Jets Vice President Sales & Marketing Europe/Middle East/Africa.

When we met one year ago you told me lots of essential things about the Embraer. Nowadays I would like to be acknowledged in the actual changes that happen within the past year.

This is a very important year. It’s been a good progression for us. Firstly we would deliver the first Phenom 100 at the end of this year. The first flight of the Phenom 300 took place two months ahead of schedule and that was another great achievement for us. We will also have a certification of the Phenom 100 this year, because the certification will be the first and than the delivery will follow. And than we will have a delivery of the first Lineage this year. And that’s all going to be happen between now and the end of this year.

Have you already certified the Lineage?

It will be certified this year.

And of course we launched the Legacy 450 and the Legacy 500 programs in May. Both of these units will be brought to the market with fly-by-wire technology. Nobody in this category has fly-by-wire. So we feel that Embraer raised the bar and raised the level. The results of the launch of those two models are very fantastic for us.

So that are the 4 milestones that we were talking last year. So it’s a very exciting time for us.

You know that 3 years ago we had only the Legacy 600, today we have 6 models and that means a lot of investments to the market. There’re still one or two gaps that we look at some time. We are constantly evaluating the world market to see what niche, what models will support market until there are some gaps to be finished.

Please accept my congratulations. That’s really great. I would like to ask you about the quantity of the orders for the Phenoms you got recently.

Now we have gone through 800 orders for both models. For the Phenom 100 obviously we have a higher quantity and we sell it to 47 different countries.

Do you still consider it as an entry level jet?

Yes we considered it as an entry level, not VLJ.

But within the low operation costs around 550 dollars per hour you put 4 passengers and travel around 1160 miles around Europe, so it’s very reasonable to operate. And it broke a lot of new concepts: you see more people thinking about air taxi and a ways of do charter at half the rate of most aircraft charters are doing today because of the new technology.

I can only agree because I also consider the Phenom 100 as one of the best choices for the family aircraft or for the air taxi.

We look forward to trying to bring here the Phenom 100 demonstrator next year at February-March, as we will have demonstrator from January.

So still there’re no orders from Russia for the Phenoms, aren’t them?

No. Ukraine – yes, but not from Russia yet. And I think that’s largely due to the large market aircraft size that Russians like, because they travel with the lots of people and with a large luggage.

And also this aircraft is good for the airlines training. Some airlines purchase it to use for the training.

Really?

They can use the Phenom 100 for the pilots to understand the glass cockpit and than move up to the bigger jets later.

Can you describe me the new developments: the Legacy 450 and the Legacy 500?

The Legacy 500 will be delivered first and the Legacy 450 will be delivered a year later, it is the same we did with the Phenoms. They share the same airframe, same wings, same engine, same avionics except the 450 is a little bit smaller in length than the 500. It has a shorter range 2300 nautical miles. The Legacy 500 has 3050 nautical miles range. They have a flat floor with a full 6 feet stand-up cabin.

Great for that size.

Yes. Nobody else is doing this. The other aircrafts have a drop isles to get the height. This has a flat floor. And of course fly-by-wire with side stick. It could be easier for the pilots, good for passengers.

What’s the difference in the length of the cabins of 450 and 500?

It’s about 4 feet. And there’s a difference in price as well. For the Legacy 450 is 15.2 millions dollars today and for the Legacy 500 is 18.4 million USD.

How many orders have already got for them?

We haven’t publicly announced the quantity of orders yet.

But have you started sells?

Oh, yes.

And the procedure of purchasing is the same to the Phenoms, am I right?

Yes, we are taking contracts with nonrefundable deposits.
We will have a mockup of the Legacy 500 at the Dubai airshow as well as the Lineage.

Should we talk about Lineage?

First of all the Lineage is a very sophisticated aircraft. It is also fly-by-wire.
The Lineage is derived from the 190 platform which is the commercial airline version. I think that today we have nearly hundred planes flying with many airlines through out the world. The Lineage has the same systems. The only thing that we have done with airframe is added the additional fuel tanks to give it the range of 4200 nautical miles.

For that type of the aircrafts you have to think of the luxury issues, you have to arrange a stylish cabin. Do you design and produce the interiors by yourself or do you have contracts for the finishing with the side companies?

So what we do – the customers can customize the interior and we send it to the US where we have a contract with the company called De Crane also known as PATS. So the interior is completed in the States by PATS and than the plane is returned to the Brazil where we paint aircraft and deliver it to the customer.

De Crane has been doing interiors for the BBJs for a long time. So they have a lot of experience. Now they are only doing Lineage interiors.

Do you use composites for the onboard furniture or do you prefer natural materials?

Some composite is used for the modules: for the walls or for the basic frames. So nobody can see it. Otherwise they use a real wood veneer, real leathers, platings, laminate and the customer has a big selection of variety of the materials to choose from.
And to see now what is quit popular is people are going away from the wood veneer and going to the polished laminate. It has a very hard surface to scratch. So we built what ever they want.

Let’s continue talking about finishing. I can remember that for the Phenoms you are working with BMW designer (Designworks USA). Who will provide you the design for the new Legacies?

For the new Legacies we haven’t defined anybody to give us a design yet. But what is interesting Embraer has won two prestigious awards: for the interior of the Phenom and the Lineage.

One was from the Robb Report – the USA magazine. And they called it as the Best of the Best and the Phenom 100 was selected world wide as the best of the best. And the other was a Brazilian design award. I believe it’s called IDEA/Brazil Design Award and that was for the design of the Lineage and the Phenoms.

What’s about the current orders for the Lineage?

They’ve done very well for us. We had a lot of success in Europe, Russia and Middle East. First, second and the third Lineages will go to the Middle East.

You told me that still there are some gaps. What’s the next direction to go? Do you have any particular plans to extend the product line?

It’s not us having the plans it’s the market having the demand. And we are constantly looking to the market to see if there is a demand or requirement. If we feel that there is some, we’ll look to it more closely. And that’s what we are constantly doing. Nothing is been really defined where we should move next.

Ten percents of the Russian business jets are the Legacies.

And 20% of the Legacy fleet is Russian.

These aircraft are very popular in Russia. Do you think to settle the authorized service center in the country?

We work very closely with Jet Aviation because they do maintenance for us in Zurich and in Germany already and they have established the relationship with Vnukovo 3 to provide maintenance. So we held a discussion with Jet Aviation. We’re trying to enhance cooperation and see how we can provide our customers a better service here.

I would like to finalize this conversation with the general questions. Can you give me any comments regarding participation in Jet Expo this year?

It’s interesting. I think it’s much better this year. I can see at a lot of people exhibiting here. They invested more money in their stands. All the major manufacturers with the senior management are here. It’s a lot bigger, if you consider the static display last year I think we had about 18 aircrafts. This year we have close to 30. So it’s developing.

Have you noticed the changes in the trends of Russian Business aviation market within the year past?

The current trend is remained pretty much the same in terms of interest and if you look at the model of the aircraft that they want which is been the Legacy 600. And Russian market has been fantastic for us as well. We consider it as one of the largest markets for us, next to the Middle East. And by the end of this year we will have 32 Legacies 600 in Russia. The acceptance of the Legacies has been really good. We haven’t managed a breakthrough with the Phenoms yet. But the Lineage was good for us and we will continue to grow that.

Let’s appoint the meeting at the next exhibition to talk about progression of Embraer again.