Boeing’s decision to let the deadline pass for its purchase of 80 percent of Embraer’s commercial airplane business ranks among the most dramatic competitive shakeups in the aerospace industry since the onset of the Covid-19 crisis, but perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. In a way, the pandemic served to seal the fate of a deal that had become more of a distraction than it was worth to the board members and executives in Chicago already absorbed in the 737 Max drama and the structural upset it wrought.
Not only did the $4.2 billion purchase price look overly steep following Embraer’s precipitous decline in market value since the pandemic took hold, but the $1.6 billion that would have gone directly to Embraer shareholders would seem to conflict with the spirit of the restriction on dividends attached to any government support on its way to Boeing under the CARES Act.
Gregory Polek has spent his entire career in aviation journalism with AIN, starting as a proofreader and assistant to then-managing editor Mary Mahoney in 1995 after serving an internship with New Jersey Monthly magazine and completing his B.A. degree in English/Writing at New Jersey’s William Paterson College. By 1997 Polek accepted a position as an associate editor, covering the regional airline beat for Aviation International News in place of retiring industry veteran Don Anderson. The assignment took Polek across North America and Europe to profile regional airlines varying in size and mission from the likes of floatplane operators Kenmore Air and Chalk’s Ocean Airways to regional jet operators such as SkyWest and American Eagle. Today, in his dual role as Air Transport Editor and International Airshow Editor, Polek writes, edits, and manages AIN’s commercial aviation content while overseeing each of the company’s daily international air show publications in Paris, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai. Most recently Polek has assumed oversight of daily coverage of the Helicopter Association International’s annual Heli-Expo convention.
More In Aircraft
