KLM City Hopper, KLM's regional subsidiary, will soon receive the first of ten Embraer 190 aircraft it ordered. The type, scheduled to be delivered in November, will be assigned on short haul flights out of Amsterdam to various destinations in Europe including Geneva and Frankfurt. The Embraer 190's will replace the Fokker 100's which have been grounded several times lately for technical reasons, the 100's will leave the fleet at the latest beginning of 2010. The shorter and newer 70's will stay in the fleet longer, although the replacement of the latter is also foreseen in the longer run. KLM City Hopper operates a fleet consisting of three Fokker models, the 50 turboprop, as well as the 70 and 100 jets.
Embraer (EMpresa BRasilia AERonautica), a Brasilian company, has built hundreds of regional jets since it first unveiled the 145 ten years ago. The 170 and 190, called the E jets, were unveiled in 2004 ( I saw those at the Paris Air Show in 2005) and are now in service with several major and regional airlines in the world. The 170 and 190 are Embraer's latest product to come off the assembly lines in Sao Paulo, they both have a 2-2 seating layout and they are so far the two largest aircraft the company has ever made. The 190 is the longest variant of the E jets.
Embraer has no market share in the large aircraft sector lead by Airbus and Boeing, because it has never made an aircraft any larger than the E jet, but it has an important market share in the sales of regional jet aircraft.
