E-195 Was Previously Delivered To Air Europa

Embraer welcomed Arkia Israeli Airlines to its E-Jets customer family on Thursday. The airline will operate one Embraer 195, formerly operated by Air Europa, from Tel Aviv to major Mediterranean and European destinations.

"We are very proud to have Arkia join our E-Jets family of customers and as the very first operator of an E-Jet in Israel," said Mauro Kern, Embraer Executive Vice President, Airline Market. "Arkia is a fast-growing Israeli airline. It is a pleasure to support them, and we look forward to an everexpanding and developing relationship."

Arkia’s Embraer 195 will seat 122 passengers in a single-class layout, a configuration that will enable the airline "to offer a unique product with highly competitive trip cost performance, as against larger narrowbody jets," Embraer said. The aircraft will be primarily dispatched in mid-density European scheduled and charter markets.

"For short and medium routes, the Embraer 195 is going to offer us much more advantageous costs than any conventional single-aisle aircraft, plus an exceptional level of comfort for our passengers," said Gadi Tepper, CEO of Arkia Israeli Airlines. "The introduction of this new aircraft is pivotal to our dynamic ongoing development plan."

The Embraer 195 is the largest aircraft of the four-member E-Jets family, and entered revenue service in September 2006. On September 30, 2008, Embraer had logged 865 firm orders and 813 options for the E-Jets family.

FMI: www.embraer.com, www.arkia.com