JAL has ordered another Embraer E170, roughly three years after the type originally went into service with its regional offshoot J-Air.
J-Air now has ten E170s in service after taking delivery and the extra jet, valued at US$38 million at list prices, comes from an amendment to the original contract. The tenth jet was delivered in February last year.
As with the previous ones, the extra E170 will be powered by GE CF34-8E engines and have a 76-seat single class configuration. Delivery is planned for the last quarter of 2012.
“JAL’s latest order is an important recognition of the excellent performance the E-Jets in terms of schedule reliability, comfort and economics,” said Paulo Cesar Silva, Embraer president, commercial aviation. “We continue to build a solid relationship with JAL, which has been deploying our E-Jets to right-size some of its narrow-body markets and developing new routes across Japan.”
“With this additional EMBRAER 170 order, Japan Airlines continues the process of optimizing its domestic route network, begun in February 2009, when the first E-Jet started commercial service at J-Air. The E170 is extremely popular for a variety of reasons. First, with our business customers because it allows us to add flights as demand in key markets grows; second, our shareholders because of the fleet’s economic contribution to our turn-around plan; and third, our Operations Department because it is among the most reliable airplanes we operate today,” said Tsuyoshi Yamamura, J-AIR president and JAL executive officer.
With the current fleet of ten E170s, J-Air replaced old and inefficient aircraft on routes such as Tokyo-Haneda to Nanki-Shirahama and between Osaka-Itami to Aomori. The airline also re-launched some routes, including Osaka-Itami to Miyazaki, previously flown with old and bigger jets, adjusting capacity to demand.
