Brazil-based major aerospace and defence group Embraer has announced that its commercial and business aircraft deliveries last year were 13% higher than in 2022, reaching a total of 181 aircraft (as against 160 in 2022). However, the 2023 figure still fell short of the company’s guidance for last year, which had been for deliveries in the 185 to 200 range. This had been the result of delays in the company’s supply chain.

Even so, the delivery of business jets was the highest it had been in seven years. And deliveries of Embraer’s EJet-E2 (E2) family of new generation smaller single-aisle airliners increased by more than 100%, year-on-year.

The group’s order backlog stood at $18.7-billion at the end of last year. This was $1.2-billion higher than at the end of 2022.

In numbers of units, the company delivered 115 executive jets last year (compared with 102 in 2022). This figure was divided into 74 light jets and 41 medium jets. The light jets were subdivided into eleven Phenom 100s and 63 Phenom 300s. The medium jet deliveries were subdivided into 20 Praetor 500s and 21 Praetor 600s.

Regarding its commercial jet, or airliner, deliveries, these totalled 64 in 2023 (up from 57 in 2022). Of these, 25 were E175s, the only version of the original EJet family still in production; this figure represented a significant decrease on the 35 E175s delivered in 2022. This decline was more than offset by the increase in deliveries of E2 family aircraft, which totalled 39 (as against 19 in 2022). The E2 deliveries were subdivided into one E190-E2 (2022 also saw a single delivery of this type) and 38 E195-E2s (as against only 18 deliveries in 2022). The E195-E2 is Embraer’s largest airliner model.

The group now has a firm commercial aircraft order backlog of 298 aircraft. This comprises 100 E175s, 16 E190-E2s and 182 E195-E2s.

Further, the group’s Defence & Security division delivered two C-390 multirole military airlifter aircraft last year. In 2022, only a single example of this type – the largest aircraft ever developed by Embraer – had been delivered. (However, last year saw the C-390 ordered by Austria, the Czech Republic and South Korea.) One of the two aircraft delivered last year was the first example for the Portuguese Air Force.

The company’s Services & Support division achieved a year-on-year growth of $400-million in its business. This took the division’s total backlog to $3.1-billion, the highest level it had ever achieved.