Airlines Deals

Mandarin Airlines, a unit of Taiwan’s largest carrier, China Airlines, will lease eight planes made by Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica SA to replace older aircraft and to add capacity.

The carrier will lease three Embraer 190 aircraft and five Embraer 195s from GE Commercial Aviation Services, General Electric Co.’s aircraft-leasing unit, Taipei-based Mandarin Airlines said in a statement today. The planes will replace 11 older Fokker aircraft, spokeswoman Nadia Huang said today.

Like other Asian carriers, Mandarin Airlines is adding capacity to meet rising travel demand. Asia’s airlines may post a 6.5 percent increase in traffic annually until 2009, the International Air Transport Association said in February.

“The new planes will increase our capacity because they’re bigger,'’ Huang said by telephone from Taipei. “We will phase out the Fokkers gradually.'’

Mandarin Airlines plans to use the planes, to be delivered between 2007 and 2009, on domestic routes and possibly on new international routes, Huang said, declining to give further details. The airline flies to eight cities on the island, as well as Hong Kong, Seoul and other Asian destinations, according to its Web site.

China Airlines shares rose 0.3 percent to NT$15.15 in Taipei. They are down 5 percent for the year, compared with a 1.4 percent gain in the benchmark Taiex Index.

Embraer Infrastructure

Embraer said that it would open an Asia-Pacific spare parts logistics center for operators of its EJets, including the 190, before the second half of 2007, as well as placing a full flight simulator in the region.

“We are in the final stages of selecting locations for this infrastructure,'’ Frederico Fleury Curado, executive vice president at Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil-based Embraer, said in a statement.

Mandarin Airlines will be the first Asian carrier to operate the Embraer 190 and 195. Hong Kong Express Airways Ltd. and India’s Paramount Airways Pvt. already fly the smaller 170.

Mandarin Airlines was considering the Embraer 190, Boeing Co.’s 737-700 and Airbus SAS’s A319, Chairman Michael Lo said in March. The carrier’s fleet includes six Fokker 100s, five Fokker 50s and three Boeing 737-800s, Huang said today.

The Embraer 190, which can carry as many as 106 people, has a range of 2,300 nautical miles (4,260 kilometers). The 118-seat Embraer 195 can fly 2,100 nautical miles.

Mandarin Airlines’ Fokker 100s are fitted with 109 seats each, while its Fokker 50s have 56 seats each. Stork NV, based in Naarden, Netherlands, stopped making Fokker aircraft in 1996.

GE Commercial Aviation, the world’s largest aircraft lessor, placed a $650 million order in June 2005 for 20 Embraer 190s, with an option to convert them to 195s. It will supply Mandarin Airlines’ planes from its existing backlog, according to Embraer. The aircraft maker had a total of 269 orders for the 190 and 195 at the end of March.