SÃO JOSÉ DOS CAMPOS, Brazil — Brazilian aerospace firm Embraer plans to nearly double its output of the KC-390 Millennium airlifter by the end of the decade, according to a company executive.
“As demand is growing, not only to meet the current commitments we have with customers, but also looking to the future, looking ahead [at] what’s coming, we are in ramping up mode,” Marcio Monteiro, the chief marketing officer of Embraer’s defense division, said in a June 10 briefing with reporters here.
Embraer this year anticipates building six aircraft. “Towards the end of the decade, we expect to reach 10 aircraft a year in terms of production,” Monteiro said. (Like other media, Breaking Defense accepted accommodations from Embraer for a media tour of the company’s facilities in Brazil.)
Embraer’s Millennium has been on something of a hot streak recently, scoring wins in a number of competitions like one in Sweden last year and another in the UAE in May. Looking ahead, Embraer anticipates the total addressable market for the airlifter — which often competes against Lockheed Martin’s C-130J Super Hercules and at times Airbus’s A400M Atlas — could number as many as 450 aircraft over the next two decades.
