Aug. 27, 2026, © Leeham News: Following the collapse of its joint venture with Boeing in April 2020, Embraer Group faced a major challenge in reintegrating Embraer Commercial Aviation (ECA) into the broader organization.
Embraer spent $120 million carving out ECA from the rest of the company. The joint venture also made customers hesitate to order E-Jets until the consequences of the deal became clear.
Embraer E195-E2. Photo credit: Embraer
Though an arbitrator awarded ECA $150 million in breakup fees that Boeing had to pay, an ECA officer ruefully remarked that the money went to the lawyers. He probably was only half joking.
As complex as reintegration was, the immediate concern was survival. The COVID-19 pandemic emerged in March 2020. There hadn’t been a global pandemic with such dire consequences since the Spanish Flu in 1918-1920, which killed 25-100 million people.
