Mandarin Airlines has chosen the Embraer 190 and Embraer 195 E-Jets as the core aircraft for their future fleet requirements.

Mandarin has elected to initially acquire a fleet of eight aircraft under operating leases and has signed a contract with GE Commercial Aviation Services (GECAS) to lease three Embraer 190s and five Embraer 195s aircraft. These orders will come from the existing GECAS backlog.

Both E-Jet types will be configured in a single class configuration consisting of 104 seats at 31-inch (79 cm) pitch for the Embraer 190 and 116 seats at similar pitch for the Embraer 195s. Deliveries of these aircraft are scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2007. In addition to replacing their existing fleet of Fokker 100s and Fokker 50s on domestic routes, the Taipei-based carrier will use the new generation E-Jets to develop short-haul intra-regional markets throughout Asia.

"The selection of the right fleet is vitally important to the successful management of an airline. With this in mind, members of Mandarin Airlines' fleet project team have spent one and a half years assessing many different aircraft types, considering the strategic position of the company in a very competitive environment, the demand of the future market, the performance of the aircraft, as well as the maintenance and training support offered by the manufacturers, etc.," said Michael Lo, Chairman of Mandarin Airlines.

In conjunction with this transaction, Embraer will significantly expand its product support network in Asia Pacific by establishing a spare parts logistics center and placing a full flight simulator in the region.