Background During the early 2010s, the
regional jets segment of the international airliner market grew more competitive with the announcement of the
Airbus A320neo and the
Boeing 737 MAX, thus it was thought that Embraer would have to respond or else lose the competitiveness of the
E-Jet family through inaction. In November 2011, Embraer announced at the Dubai Air Show that it had committed to developing new generation of its E-Jet family. This option was both lower risk and lower cost than pursuing a clean sheet design. During January 2013, it was announced the
Pratt & Whitney PW1000G, a
geared turbofan, had been selected to be the exclusive engine of the E2. Embraer commercial aircraft president Paulo Cesar de Souza e Silva noted that the PW1000G was the best suited engine for the performance sought by customers. The selection of the PW1000G is likely to have been eased by the parallel development of the smaller PW1200G engine for the
Mitsubishi Regional Jet as well as the larger and more mature PW1500G for the Airbus A220. During June 2013, the $1.7 billion program was launched at the
Paris Air Show, citing strong customer demand. The development programme made extensive use of digital model simulations and static test rigs, enabling rapid progress to be made early on. It flew for three hours and twenty minutes to
Mach 0.82, climbed to , retracted the
landing gear and
flaps, and engaged the
fly-by-wire in normal mode. It flew earlier than the previously anticipated second half of 2016. The program had fewer challenges than expected and introduction was then planned in the first quarter of 2018. The airplane was slightly below expected weight and the other two E190-E2
prototypes should fly within a year. By April 2017, 650 hours of flight tests had been completed and the program was reportedly on schedule. Embraer sought to guarantee a 99% schedule reliability in the first year of service. By June 2017, half of the
flight testing had been completed; the aerodynamics were reportedly better than predicted and the E190-E2
hot and high performance was also better than anticipated. The E195-E2's
MTOW increased to and its
range to . In June 2017, the four E190-E2s and the single E195-E2 - which was presented at the 2017
Paris Air Show - had made more than 900 flight-test hours, mostly by the E190-E2s. In July 2017, the five aircraft had flown 1,000 flight-test hours while the E190-E2 had accomplished 55% of its test campaign. In January 2018, 98% of the test campaign was completed with 2,000 flight hours.