Embraer Executive Jet’s Customer Support & Services (CS&S) division is getting into high gear to be ready for the Legacy 500 to enter service around mid-year. “Four support centers are making preparations in Europe [and the Middle East],”said CS&S vice president Edson Carlos Mallaco. One is an Embraer-owned facility at Paris Le Bourget Airport, and the other three are authorized service centers run by Inflite (London Stansted), Nayak (Cologne) and ExecuJet (Dubai).

The Brazilian airframer’s new Sorocaba service center opened March 27, near São Paulo, will be able to also support the new Legacy. This 215,278-sq-ft facility has involved an investment of $25 million and includes maintenance, repair and overhaul capability, extensive hangar space and FBO facilities.

Embraer’s CS&S worldwide network has steadily increased as the manufacturer’s fleet has expanded. There are now nearly 70 centers around the world, 12 of which are owned by Embraer. The CS&S division employs more than 600 people, but Mallaco estimated that, including independently owned authorized service centers, more than 10 times this figure are supporting Embraer aircraft.

The average initial response time to a customer request is one hour. Depending on the complexity of the request and spare parts availability, at least another 24 hours will be needed to resolve the issue. In 2009, CS&S established a new customer contact center near Embraer’s São José dos Campos headquarters, where more than 12,000 interactions are now conducted each month.

As Embraer’s fleet continues to grow (with 759 aircraft as of the end of the first quarter of 2014), the OEM is laying plans to increase support capability in countries such as Japan, China and Russia. Mallaco said the company is already developing plans for a support center in Japan, while in Russia it is partnered with service provider Jet Aviation. In China, Embraer CS&S has its own center in Beijing and an MRO partner in Hong Kong, mainly for the Lineage 1000. With the new Legacy 450 and 500 models set to enter service, this network is about to get much busier.