[2010.09.11]The jet set

endwaiting

A special report on Latin America
The jet set
Embraer bucks the trend
逆流雄起的巴西航空

Sep 9th 2010

THEY may be the exception rather than the norm, but Latin America is clearly capable of producing world-class companies.

Embraer, set up in 1969 as an aspiring national aircraft-maker by Brazil’s military government and privatised in 1994, has

since established itself as the world’s third-largest producer of commercial jet aircraft and the market leader in jets

with 50-120 seats.

极少数的世界一流公司会诞生于拉丁美洲，但巴西航空工业公司的出现却彰显了拉丁美洲在培养世界级公司方面的能力。巴西航空工业公司

是巴西军政府于1969年创立的一家国有航空制造企业，极具发展潜力。该公司于1994年转型为私有企业，并从此立足于建设成为世界第三大

商用喷气飞机制造商并掌控50-120座位客机的市场领导权。

To do so, it has had to be nimble. Its first commercial jet, the 50-seater ERJ-145, sold mainly to North American regional

airlines keen to skirt union restrictions on the crewing of larger planes. With its bigger E-170-190 range (of 70-122

seats) the company broke out of that niche, finding customers among many of the world’s main airlines. In 2002 it set up a

joint venture in China to manufacture the ERJ-145. It is now building factories in Florida and Portugal.

实现此目标，巴航空工业公司必须另辟蹊径。其生产的第一种商业客机----ERJ-145以北美的区域性航空公司为主要销售市场，而这些航空公司严格遵守服

装联盟对大型飞机机组人员的约束制度。其随后的70-120座E-170-190大型客机采取了与50座ERJ-145飞机截然不同的销售方向，定位于全球

主要航空公司。在2002年，巴航空工业公司与中国建立合资企业生产ERJ-145型客机。而如今其在佛罗里达和葡萄牙的工厂也已建立。

The recession has hit the aircraft industry hard, and Embraer has not been spared. It has gone from assembling 14 E-jets a

month to just eight, and has mothballed one of its three production lines. Revenues last year fell by 14%, to $5.5 billion,

and more than a quarter of the company’s workforce was laid off, bringing it down to 16,800. Embraer also faces growing

competition. As well as Canada’s Bombardier, a long-standing rival, this will soon include companies from Russia, China

and Japan that are developing small commercial jets.

经济衰退使全球航空制造业遭受严重打击，巴航空工业公司也没有幸免。其产量从每月组装14架E型喷气客机下降至8架次还关闭了其三条生

产线中的一条。自去年以来，巴航空工业公司收入55亿美元同比下降14个百分点，员工人数在裁员超过1/4后降至16800人。此外，巴航空工

业公司还面临着日益增长的市场竞争。面临同样境地的还有其长期竞争对手----加拿大的Bombardier公司，而如此全球航空制造业不佳的趋

势很快会席卷至俄罗斯、中国和日本的小型商用喷气式飞机制造商。

But Frederico Fleury, Embraer’s chief executive, reckons his reliable commercial jets with their established brand will be

hard to beat and can win new orders for routes currently being flown by bigger planes. Rather than develop larger aircraft

of its own, which would pit it against Boeing and Airbus, the company is diversifying in other ways. The rise in the oil

price has made the ERJ-145 uneconomic, and Embraer will shut its factory in China next year unless it secures an agreement

to make the E-190 there. At its main factory at São José dos Campos it has reconfigured the ERJ-145 production line to make

executive jets, and its defence business is expanding. Between them these two parts of the business are likely to grow to

make up half the company’s sales, up from 27% now, says Mr Fleury.

但巴航空工业公司首席执行官Frederico Fleury表示作为一家稳定可靠的商用喷气式飞机知名制造商，巴航空工业公司是很难被击垮的，并

会赢得目前由大型客机值航的航线订单。巴航空工业公司并没用采用研发大型客气与波音和空中客车公司相抗衡的路线，而是选择了其他的

多样化投资方式。日益上涨的油价使得ERJ-145型客机已无经济优势可言，如果没有取得生产E-190型客机的许可，巴航空工业公司将会在明

年关闭其在中国的工厂。并且该公司在其设立在São José dos Campos（圣若泽-杜斯坎普斯 ）的主要工厂的ERJ-145的生产线做出了重新调

整，以用来生产商务用机并且其国防业务数额也在不断扩展。Mr Fleury表示此两项业务在总销售量中的比重将会从目前的27%上升至50%，

Embraer, he insists, has been strengthened by adversity. It has improved its productivity, partly through a host of small

changes such as switching off lights during the lunch hour, and partly through more automation. It has continued to invest

in research and development and will launch two new executive jets in the next three years. The company’s competitive

advantage is not cheap labour, says Mr Fleury, but its know-how (of composite materials, for example), its highly educated

workforce (a third of them engineers) and its network of local suppliers. In other words, it is not very different from any

other high-tech global company.

并且认为巴航空工业公司在全球经济不景气的逆境中得到更大发展。公司通过在午饭时间关灯等一些列小措施和加强自动化的方式提高其生

产率，致力于继续投资研发并计划未来三年投产两种新型商务客机。Mr Fleury还表示公司的竞争优势并不是廉价的劳动力，而在于其例如复

合材料的高端技术、工程师数量占据1/3的高学历劳动力以及当地供应商网络。总之，与其他高科技全球公司不同。