Embraer: Shaking Up the Aircraft Manufacturing Market

The case examines how market trends and competition in the global airline industry have driven recent developments in the commercial aircraft industry. Continued growth of low-cost carriers and industry downturn since September 11 have created a demand for smaller, more efficient regional jets and a gap between capacity and demand for planes in the 70- to 120-seat range. As a primary player in the regional jet segment, Embraer has developed a new aircraft family to serve the 70- to 120-seat market more efficiently and fill in the gap. Meanwhile, Bombardier, its major competitor in the regional jet market, announced it would develop a CSeries of aircrafts with unmatched operating efficiency to outperform Embraer's jets. Students must decide how Embraer should respond to Bombardier's CSeries challenge and whether Airbus and Boeing, the two largest aircraft makers in the world, would be likely to respond and, if so, how.