Embraer, which only really got started in the business jet industry five years ago, says it wants up to 30 percent of the market and it’s most of the way there. “We don’t want to be greedy,” Ernie Edwards, head of Embraer’s executive jet business, told Reuters in an interview at LABACE last week. “Twenty to 30 percent would be healthy market share,” Edwards said. The Phenom series of light business jets has made significant inroads in that market segment but it’s the higher-margin mid-sized realm that is next on the Brazilian company’s agenda.
The first Legacy 450 is now under construction and Embraer is hoping for first flight of the Legacy 500 by the end of 2013, but it’s taken a gamble with the two mid-sized aircraft, a gamble that might pay off in a serious challenge to Cessna’s dominance of that market segment. Both are fly-by-wire designs, technology not previously available in the $15-$20 million price range. Like all manufacturers, Embraer is waiting for the world economic situation to sort itself out and Edwards said there are positive signs in the U.S., if not in Europe.
