Poll: Will small aircraft be better positioned when the industry begins to emerge from COVID-19?

Embraer Commercial Aviation president and CEO John Slattery spoke with Aviation Week editors on a wide-ranging webinar May 1, Slattery emphasized that his 10,000-person business—carved out for the proposed tie-up with Boeing that the U.S. company walked away from on April 25—will be reshaped to better line up with Embraer’s defense and business aviation units. 

Slattery said the consensus he’s seeing among senior air transport executives is that the airline business’s recovery will take three-to-five years, but it will be uneven. Smaller aircraft and shorter haul flying is likely to bounce back more quickly as airlines focus on trip costs over capacity. Long-haul flying, particularly between countries, will likely take longer to recover, especially if the patchwork of responses for protecting passengers from COVID-19 does not become more streamlined, which would provide more comfort to would-be travelers.

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