Brazil’s Embraer has an ambition to get into the growing air freighter business, now dominated by large planes from Boeing and Airbus, and it thinks it’s found a niche.
While the major airlines and air freight companies such as FedEx and UPS have focused on large freighters, from 757s on up to 747s and the coming 777XF, Embraer believes there’s a strong market for freighters based on its smaller and shorter-range E190 and E195 models.
The company plans to begin offering passenger-to-freight conversions, taking advantage of the large number of E models now reaching the 10 to 15 year mark. While planes that size can carry far less cargo than the larger ones, they can serve smaller airports and could replace the less-efficient turboprop freighters serving some of those markets.
