Estonian Air Switches to E-Jet Family

Estonian Air will this month take delivery of its first Embraer regional jet models after selecting the Brazilian manufacturer’s E-Jet family to form the backbone of its fleet. The airline is expected to operate a mix of variants from the aircraft family, offering options of between 76 and 112 seats, a capacity that will better fit the airline’s new network strategy, according to company executives.

The airline has already agreed to acquire four E170s on lease from Finnair and these will be delivered over the course of the next few weeks. These will be joined by an additional eight aircraft, comprising a mix of E175 and E190 variants, and the carrier is currently negotiating with the manufacturer and lessors on the delivery schedules and conditions for these aircraft. According to the carrier it is looking to induct these examples in the 2013 to 2015 timeframe.

According to Tero Taskila, President of Estonian Air, the Embraer regional jets are well suited to the national carrier’s new business strategy due to their capacity and flight range. The new aircraft will be used to increase frequencies on existing routes to ensure at least double daily offerings to the main international markets from the Baltic capital, Tallinn as well as to open additional routes which previously would not have been sustainable with larger equipment.

“Smaller airlines, such as Estonian Air have to be flexible,” explained Tero Taskila. “The Embraer E-Jet family offers range of sizes which allow us to also to offer aircraft similar size to existing smaller Boeing aircraft, but at the same time keep single fleet type efficiency and regional aircraft operating cost levels. Having a smaller and larger version of the same type of aircraft means significant economic efficiency for Estonian Air.

We can change the aircraft size based on demand on routes, thus reducing the need to reducing the need to change amount of flight frequencies based on seasonality.”