By Luciana Magalhaes and Gabriel Araujo
SAO CARLOS, Brazil (Reuters) -LATAM Airlines will receive the E195-E2 jets it ordered from Embraer "relatively quickly" and expects them to allow the carrier to add 25 to 30 new destinations in Brazil, an executive said on Friday.
"An important portion of them will be delivered next year, by the end of the year, and then another portion in 2027," LATAM Brasil CEO Jerome Cadier told Reuters, adding the airline would decide within six months which routes the jets
should serve.
The Brazilian unit of Chile-based LATAM is the country's No. 1 airline by market share. The carrier announced on Monday a firm order for 24 E195-E2 aircraft, with purchase options for another 50.
The deal was a milestone for both firms, with Embraer notching a long-awaited order for its second-generation jets in Brazil, and LATAM adding the regional planes to complement a fleet of Airbus narrowbodies and Boeing widebodies.
AIRBUS COMPETITION
Cadier first revealed last year that LATAM was considering purchasing smaller jets and cited Embraer's E2 and Airbus' A220, direct competitors in the up-to-150-seat segment.
The A220 would have offered more seats and longer range, placing it closer to the narrowbodies LATAM already flies, while the smaller, 136-seat E2 better fits the carrier's needs for the Brazilian market, Cadier noted.
"When you look at the destinations, the distance between the cities we operate in, the potential markets and demand from those cities, the E2 fits very well," he said. "If there were many large cities, maybe the A220 would be more suitable."
Cadier did not provide further detail on the destinations LATAM could add to its domestic roster.
EXPANSION PLANS
Following the new orders, LATAM will keep expanding its workforce and expects to match its 2024 hiring levels of about 1,000 employees this year, including pilots and cabin crew members.
The firm invested 40 million reais ($7.49 million) in a new hangar designed for heavy maintenance at its Sao Carlos base.
The facility was inaugurated on Friday, a day after rivals Azul and Gol ended talks on a merger that would have created Brazil's largest airline by market share, surpassing LATAM.
Cadier said the tie-up would not have been worrisome, as antitrust watchdog CADE would likely have imposed restrictions on the deal.
"We never considered a scenario in which such a merger would be approved without mitigation measures," he said.
($1 = 5.3392 reais)
(Reporting by Luciana Magalhaes and Gabriel Araujo; Editing by Kylie Madry and Diane Craft)
