By Anne Kauranen
HELSINKI, March 23 (Reuters) – Finnair will renew its European fleet with an order for 18 E195-E2 narrow-body aircraft from Brazilian manufacturer Embraer, it said on Monday, as it moved away from its current supplier Airbus.
The order – the Finnish flag carrier’s largest investment in over two decades – deals a further blow to France’s Airbus, after Embraer’s E2 outsold the Airbus A220 three to one last year. Finnair said it also plans to acquire up to 12 Airbus A320 or A321 from the used aircraft market.
“This is a highly versatile aircraft and one of the quietest on the market,” Chief Executive Turkka Kuusisto told Reuters, referring to the E195-E2.
“It will reduce our CO2 emissions by 30% per passenger carried. In addition to enabling us to operate efficiently within Finland and widely across Europe, it also supports our climate objectives,” he added.
The Embraer order includes options for 16 additional aircraft and purchase rights for a further 12, Finnair said, adding it had signed deals with RTX’s Pratt & Whitney for spare engines and maintenance services.
The total value of the company’s planned investments through the end of 2029 will amount to around 2 billion euros ($2.31 billion), Kuusisto told Reuters, declining to share further details.
EMBRAER CAPITALISING ON GLOBAL SHORT-HAUL FLEET RENEWALS
Finnair, which is majority-owned by the Finnish state, has navigated years of upheaval, first due to fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and, since 2022, from the mutual airspace closures between Russia and EU countries following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Embraer, which has a particular focus on mid-size aircraft, has benefited from a global boom in demand for regional jets as airlines catch up with fleet replacements put on hold during the pandemic, the planemaker’s CEO Arjan Meijer told Reuters in January.
“We look forward to helping Finnair modernise its short-haul fleet to better match demand, reduce emissions, and unlock growth,” Meijer said in a statement following Finnair’s order.
Finnair last year said it urgently needed to replace 15 older models from its narrow-body fleet of 29 Airbus planes, adding that more new jets might be bought to meet growing demand.
Finnair’s current narrow-body fleet includes 29 Airbus A319, A320 and A321 aircraft.
Its total fleet of around 80 aircraft consists of 26 wide-body Airbus A330s and A350s, 29 Airbus narrow-bodies of types A319, A320 and A321 of which Finnair had previously said 15 were up for renewal first. It also has a regional fleet of 12 ATR 72-500s and 12 Embraer 190s.
($1 = 0.8673 euros)
(Reporting by Anne Kauranen in Helsinki and Tim Hepher in Paris; Editing by Stine Jacobsen and Joe Bavier)
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