Panama Jack

In yesterday's edition of La Prensa (Nicaragua) there was an article that Mario Solano, their CEO, was in Managua to celebrate COPA's 35th anniversary of service to Nicaragua. During the interview, he revealed that COPA's plans are for an Embraer fleet size of 50 aircraft!


TRANSLATION
"Until now we have signed a contact for the aquisition of the first 10 aircraft which will be used on additional flights to El Salvador, Bogota and to inaugurate service to Canada, where we do not fly to yet."

Does the Embraer 190 have the range to fly MPTO to, say, CYYZ or has Mr. Solano been misquoted???

Panama Jack

Disregard that question, I've answered it myself. Seems that the EMB-190's range is 4260 km, and the great-circle distances are from MPTO to CYYZ (3835 km), to CYUL (4070 km) and to CYOW (4033 km) respectively. Amazing airplane!

Squawk7777

Yes and No! From an engineering point of view absolutely amazing, but ask pilots in the US and they hate it! Airline management sees the 170/190 series as a regional airplane therefore they want to apply regional pilot salaries.
despite the fact that Embraer calls it the EMB-170 and NOT ERJ.

Panama Jack

Of course you can count management to try to do that! And yes, that sucks.

I can't see COPA doing a 2nd tier pay level for the Embraer Jet, since their pay scales on the Boeing 737's are already at US Regional Airline levels. But then again who knows. Maybe their FO's will be making a few hundred dollars a month on it?