RE: Plane Speaking - TCCCSHi TC Nice to hear from you again after such a long time.
Your piece brings up some interesting considerations. I should preface this by saying that a lot of what follows is my own perspective and not necessarily anything carved in stone:
As you know I've been following Embraer for many years. Originally they competed with Bombardier in turboprops and then when Bombardier started building regional jets they followed suit.
After the ERJ145 (50-seater) they decided to opt for clean sheet designs instead of doing stretches. While Bombardier decided on stretching the original CRJ100/200 airframe in order to bring 70 (CRJ700) and 86-seat (CRJ900) aircraft to market Embraer raced to bring completely new designs to market.
Both strategies made sense at the time since by doing stretches Bombardier was able to get to market faster and cheaper. Embraer made a big effort to get larger, more comfortable aircraft to market in record time, but as it turned out both manufacturer's efforts to get to market quickly, were thwarted by a downturn which hit at precisely the same time.
A point I'd like to emphasize is that Embraer followed Bombardier's lead in building regional jets. Without Bombardier's innovative capacity, Embraer might still be a government-run builder of turboprops. On the other hand, some might suggest that without Embraer, Bombardier might not be moving in the direction of larger commercial jet aircraft like C Series.
Another interesting point is that Embraer currently has about 14% of the global market share for business jets. Previous reports had them pegged with only 6% market share, but then growth tends to seem much faster when coming off a base of zero.
Notice too how this article - like a few other - describes C Series as a "150-seater C Series". It would be inaccurate to describe C Series as a 150-seater even if it was building an aircraft that large since it would also be building other sizes. But currently Bombardie has no plans to build a 150-seater. That's merely speculation. It may be a reasonable expectation, but so far the largest of the two C Series currently planned will seat a maximum of 145 passengers.
This brings back memories of how so many were calling the CRJ900 a 90-seater when in reality its maximum seating configuration was only 86, and some airlines used it in a 76-seat configuration - making it little more than a 70-seater. And that might tell us something about the CRJ1000's viability.
Embraer likely will follow Bombardier into the production of larger commercial jet aircraft - at least eventually.
However, it faces significant challenges in finding an engine that offers 20% improvement over current 737s/A320 technologies without going to Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbofan engines which would only give them a "me-too" product arriving much later than Bombardier's effort.
As for the threats posed by Russia's Sukhoi, and Japan's Mitsubishi those programs will take many years to develop products comparable to the quality and reliability required for more than domestic sales. China's Comac (AVIC) probably represents more of a competitive threat, but at the same time it also represents more potential opportunity for growth.
No doubt Embraer will survive and carve out its own market share in business jets and remain a competitor in regional jets, however, the company faces big challenges in terms of the volatility of its own home currency and economy. Both have a propensity towards more volatility which creates something called "The Brazilian Risk" which discourages investment and the placing of large orders with countries in that country.
This link will take anyone wanting to read more to a recent company presentation with a lot of info on Embraer's products and outlook:
https://ri.embraer.com.br/Embraer/Show.aspx?id_materia=+ICTe35/dXzLoD1ea3XlDA==&id_canal=9MUIilkFybrzg1TSN8veog==&id_canalpai=cEpcYCcPrnGDBylyf ZISw==