16 July 2020: Helvetic Airways have decided to upgrade their contract with Embraer E2 orders. Initially Helvetic had placed an original order of 12 E190-E2s with a purchase rights for a further 12 aircraft. Now, they have upgraded their order to convert four of the E190-E2s to E195-E2s which are more sustainable and quite, burns lesser fuel and emit less CO2 per passenger. Besides it is also 40 per cent quieter than the E190 variant. Till date Embraer has delivered five E190-E2s. The deliveries of the remaining seven, having a current market price of USD 480 million, including the four upgraded ones will be completed by next year. The entire deal has cost Helvetic USD 1.25 billion.
Helvetic Airways CEO Tobias Pogorevc said, “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.”
“Helvetic Airways is powered by a high performance culture, the airline already manages to deliver greater fuel and emissions efficiency from its current E2s than Embraer advertises; and the E2 is already the most efficient single-aisle aircraft family on the market”, said Martyn Holmes, Vice President Europe, Russia and Central Asia at Embraer Commercial Aviation. “Innovative and successful airlines operating our jets is the greatest advertisement for our aircraft, and acting now to ensure the best capacity diversity for their fleet sets Helvetic Airways up for further success, even in these challenging times.”
In today’s dynamic environment, where the demand is seeing significant fluctuations, Helvetic Airways plans to alter the aircraft based on customer demand. They will configure the E195-E2 with 134 seats in a single class layout while the E190-E2s will have 110 seats. This is possible due to the common E2 cockpit allowing flight crews to operate across all E2 variants. Thus Helvetic is working on the principles of dynamic right sizing to meet market demands.
