SINGAPORE - Scoot will put its new Embraer regional jets into commercial service from May, and the aircraft will serve primarily destinations within South-east Asia, a senior pilot at the budget airline said.
“In essence, we are looking at regional routes at the moment... South-east Asia will be where the Embraer aircraft will be targeted to fly,” Captain Darius Yeo, pilot in charge of Scoot’s E190-E2 fleet, said on Feb 19.
He was speaking to the media at the launch of a flight simulator for Embraer E2 jets at the Singapore-CAE Flight Training Centre near Changi Airport.
He said Scoot was unable to provide more specifics about the destinations at the moment.
Scoot, the budget arm of Singapore Airlines (SIA), has ordered nine new Embraer E190-E2 jets from the Brazilian manufacturer.
The first plane will be delivered in April, said Embraer’s Asia-Pacific vice-president Raul Villaron.
The airline had earlier said the first jet will arrive in March.
Mr Villaron said this will be followed by the delivery of four more jets by the end of 2024, and the remaining four by the end of 2025.
The E190-E2 jet has a range of 5,278km, or six hours of flight time, and can seat up to 112 passengers. It will be the smallest aircraft in Scoot’s fleet.
The first batch of six experienced Scoot captains, including Capt Yeo, started training to fly the jets in early February, learning the theoretical and procedural aspects of the aircraft in ground school.
These six pilots previously operated Boeing 747, Airbus A320 and Airbus A350 aircraft.
Capt Yeo said that from early March, the pilots will spend around 20 hours each on the simulator over nine or 10 two-hour sessions that will progressively advance in difficulty.
Training is expected to last 60 to 70 working days, before this first batch of pilots can operate commercial flights without supervision from Embraer instructors, he added.
The simulator, which the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore certified in December 2023 to support the operations of Embraer’s E2 jets, comes equipped with the aircraft’s synthetic vision system, a database that projects terrain, infrastructure and runways on the flight display, even in cases of low visibility.
The simulator hence replicates real-world flight conditions and emergency situations for pilots to hone their competencies, added Capt Yeo.
With two decades of experience as a pilot, Capt Yeo said the transition to flying a new type of aircraft will be fairly seamless, since many aircraft systems are “quite intuitive to pilots”.
He likened the transition to driving a new car, saying it was similar to getting used to driving a continental car after having driven a Japanese one, with the controls being laid out differently.
He added that pilots will need to familiarise themselves with the nuances of the E190-E2 jet, such as the different placement of switches and the interface of the various systems.
Mr Villaron said the jets will allow Scoot to offer more options to travellers by opening up destinations it could not previously fly to because of lower demand, and in markets the airline already serves.
