Brazilian carrier Azul announced on Tuesday that it will withdraw 12 E195-E1 jets from its fleet of passenger planes by the end of 2023.
The aircraft will have different destinations: five of them were sold to the lessor Azorra Aviation, four jets are at the end of the lease agreement and another three planes will be transformed into F-class freighters, a light conversion.
Eight E195s are expected to leave the airline’s passenger network in 2022 and the rest during the next year. As a result, the active fleet of Embraer’s aircraft will drop from 45 to 33 jets. According to Azul, the reduction since 2019 involves 22 planes.
Follow us:
“This announcement demonstrates our ability to accelerate the phase-out of previous-generation Embraer E1s. The exit of the E1s gives us the opportunity to advance the delivery of next-generation E2, further expanding our margins given the E2’s 26% lower seat cost compared to the E1,” said Alex Malfitani, Azul’s CFO.
Azul has an order for 51 new-generation E195-E2s, but so far has not received any of them. For now, the airline operates nine of these planes, with 136 seats, but under lease.
Embraer is finalizing several new E195-E2s for delivery, but there is no forecast on deliveries at this time. The last time Azul received a jet of the model was in December 2020.
