The Harbin-Embraer Aircraft joint manufacturing venture on September 28 delivered the first of 100 airplanes to its biggest Chinese customer, Hainan Airlines Group (HNA) subsidiary Grand China Express. The delivery ceremony, held in the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin and attended by Embraer CEO Frederico Curado, AVIC II general manager Hongbiao Zhang and HNA Group chairman Chen Feng, also marked the delivery of the 1,000th customer airplane in Embraer’s ERJ family. Partly owned by billionaire U.S. investor and philanthropist George Soros, HNA placed a firm order for 50 Chinese-made ERJ 145s and 50 Brazilian-built Embraer E-190s in September last year.
Following the ceremony, the milestone ERJ 145 flew directly to Grand China’s base in the port city of Tianjin, China, from where the new regional airline flies a fleet of 29 Fairchild Dornier 328JETs inherited from HNA Group’s core transportation asset, Hainan Airlines. Grand China, the product of the former regional airline assets of Hainan Airlines, Xinhua Air, Chang’an Airlines and Shanxi Airlines, began operations this past May to 54 cities and ranks as the largest regional air carrier in China.
Grand China Express expects to take delivery of all 100 airplanes on order by 2012. According to Chen, the company plans to build a regional network of more than 450 routes linking some 90 cities.
