American Can't Pick Just One, Places Regional Orders With Bombardier and Embraer Totaling $1.4 Billion
American Airlines announced on Thursday that it's placed two separate aircraft orders — one with Bombardier and one with Embraer — totaling $1.4 billion. The Dallas-based carrier's Thursday order includes both a firm order for 15 Embraer E175 jets and 15 Bombardier CRJ900s.
The order for 15 Embraer E175s is worth $705 million, based on current list prices. Combined with the carrier's previous three E175 orders, the contract for AA orders with Embraer totals 89 — most recently, an order for 10 in October 2017. Deliveries for the order of 15 E175s placed on Thursday from Brazil-based Embraer will take place between March and November 2019.
Each of the 15 E175s ordered by AA on Thursday will be operated by Envoy Air, a wholly owned subsidiary of the carrier. The aircraft will be outfitted with 76 seats — 12 in first class and 64 in the main cabin, including Main Cabin Extra seats. Along with the firm order for 15 E175s, AA's also took options for 15 more.
The second order AA placed on Thursday is with Embraer's Canadian competitor, Bombardier. In total, American placed an order for 15 of Bombardier's CRJ900 jets, which will be operated by regional affiliate PSA Airlines. Based on list value, the order has a value of about $719 million. In addition, it also took options for 15 more CRJ900s.
The new CRJ900s will feature Bombardier's Atmosphere cabin, offering an enhanced passenger experience and can accommodate a large number of roller bags in its overhead bins. The aircraft will feature 76 seats — 12 in first class and the remaining in economy. The first deliveries of the CRJ900 are set to take place in the second quarter of 2019.
Bombardier has struggled to keep its CRJ program afloat, admitting to neglecting it in favor of its new CSeries family.
As Bloomberg reports, American had about 118 CRJ900 aircraft operated by regional affiliates PSA and Mesa at the end of 2017. In addition, it had 148 E175s in operation at Republic, Envoy and Compass affiliates. It's added about 200 dual-class regional jets in the past four years. Thursday's order for 30 more of the jets shows the emphasis AA is putting on updating its regional jet fleet.
