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Comment by pdonis | Hacker News Reader

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pdonis·

Not for planes the size of a 737.

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There's some slight overlap for the Max 7.

- the average 737 MAX 7 aircraft would typically carry between 138 and 153 passengers, range 3,850nm.

- Embraer 195-E2 carries between 120 and 146 passengers, range 2600nm

Why don‘t they scale up? They seem to have all the regulatory capabilities to get a commercial jet on the market already. I also never understood why e.g. China doesnm‘t just buy Embraer (or take over all their employees) and builds out from a functioning product?

Scaling up would be hard. I think the E2 is a 4 seat across aircraft. It's maximum capacity configuration is already quite long (42m) with ~120-150 seats. A320 is like 38m long with ~200 seats (6 seat across).

Scaling into the A320/737 range would need a brand new design with wider fuselage probably. I'm not saying that Embraer could not do that, but sticking with the E2/A220 size range seems to be a winning combo - until recently (A220), they had no real competition from the big two. Maybe with the more recent weakness from Boeing, Embraer might want to consider a 737/A320 class design, but these things take time.

Also, as much as BRICs is a thing, I don't think Brazil would be too fond of selling Embraer to China.

Scaling the E2 is not the answer, but there is nothing stopping Embraer from developing a six across airframe to compete with the B737 or A320. They have the engineering talent and the supply chain network in place. They have the capital. If they see a market opening, who knows… they just may go ahead.

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