Originally Posted by
rickair7777
Yeah the hump (very big hump) is the US scope clauses right smack in the middle of their obvious NB growth path.
They can't market a 180-seater out of the blue... they would be crushed by both BCA and AB. Deliberately.
Their potential path would be to establish a customer base and product support niche in the 100-seat range and gradually sneak in bigger planes. But scope...
The US isn't the only place you can sell planes, but China will eventually build exportable NB's, and the non-US market is what they're going to target. So competition everywhere. I can't really blame Embraer for staying in their niche.
The hump bites two ways. It makes sense to have a single type aircraft ranging from 70-120 seats. But it only makes sense if the same pilots fly both the smaller and larger variants.
It also makes more sense in the US than most other high income countries. We have a huge landmass full of small to medium sized cities with airports. China and Russia also fit this description but are middle income.