The Singapore Airshow 2020 will start on Tuesday, February 11, but the scenario will be bleak. The biggest aerospace event in Asia suffers from the coronavirus epidemic in China, which caused a good part of the participants to give up attending this year’s edition.
Companies like Textron, Bombardier, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Gulfstream and de Havilland of Canada pulled out of the event while Lockheed Martin reportedly stepped back and confirmed its presence. Boeing, Airbus and Embraer, in turn, maintained their original plans.
Experia Events, responsible for the Singapore Airshow, however, confirmed that 10 Chinese companies, including COMAC, which develops the C919 commercial jet, will not come to the country due to the epidemic.
Despite this, the organization of the event took steps to prevent the possible proliferation of the virus, such as banning the entry of Chinese visitors or those who have recently visited the country. There will be body temperature meters at points within the show to identify people with fever. An image from this Sunday showed the aircraft exhibition area quite empty compared to the previous edition of 2018.
A meeting point for important companies related to the aerospace sector in Asia, the Singapore Airshow is considered of great importance for some manufacturers such as Embraer. The company took the E195-E2 “Tech Lion” to the event, which was at the Paris Airshow last year, and hopes to get more orders for the new E2 family in the region.
Embraer believes that there is demand for more than 2,000 jets up to 150 seats in Asian markets, a niche in which it has few competitors so far. Even with the epidemic, the exhibition is still an opportunity for the Brazilian company.
