Embraer confirms it has cancelled development of a next-generation turboprop passenger aircraft, having previously said the project was on hold due to insufficiently advanced engine technologies.

“The turboprop initiative has been cancelled by us,” Embraer chief executive Francisco Gomes Neto said on 4 November during the company’s third-quarter earnings call. “We do not at this time have any project or initiative in that direction…it’s not on hold. It has been cancelled.”

Embraer had for years been examining the possibility of developing a new 70- to 90-seat turboprop to compete in a market that had grown stale. The only Western aircraft company still producing such turboprops is Franco-Italian manufacturer ATR.

In 2020, Embraer teased the market by releasing a digital rendering of a conceptual turboprop with wing-mounted engines. In 2021 it released an image a tweaked design with rear-mounted powerplants. But the company never committed to development because, executives said, engine manufactures had not offered a next-generation turbine.


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