As Embraer marks 15 years of its Embraer Executive Care (EEC) program, the Brazilian airframer is bolstering its aftermarket service capabilities and planning to expand its owned service center network, Embraer Executive Jets head of customer relations and aftermarket sales Marsha Woelber told AIN. “We know that our customers want to come to the OEM in many cases and we want to answer that demand,” she said.

Currently, the company operates three owned service centers in the U.S.—Mesa, Arizona, and Fort Lauderdale and Melbourne in Florida—along with one in Sorocaba, Brazil, where Embraer recently doubled its capacity, and a fifth at Paris Le Bourget. Additionally, the company has more than 60 authorized service centers.

Besides Embraer’s plans for more company-owned service centers, its Fort Lauderdale service center was recently certified as a Collins Aerospace Completion Center for modification and repair of the seats on its in-service fleet of Legacy 450s and 500s as well as Praetor 500s and 600s. Under the certification, Embraer can design new upholstery looks within the original type certificate limits. “With these customers who are new to Embraer, there is this incredible secondary market that has brought a lot of opportunities for us with interior refurbishment,” Woelber said.

With a tighter supply chain brought on by the pandemic, she said Embraer is focusing its investment on high-demand aftermarket parts, improving communication with customers in the instance of parts delays, and shifting inventories to be closer to larger fleets of its aircraft. Embraer also has been communicating with its suppliers at the executive level, Woelber added. “I think we’ve done an excellent job to keep our customers flying, but it’s not a normal environment,” she said. “We’re ready to deal with it and we have all the right people very focused on it.”

As for EEC, Woelber said more than 700 customers are enrolled in the program and it has a retention rate of about 90 percent. Under the nose-to-tail maintenance program, EEC provides budgeting and support that are rolled together under a fixed monthly fee, plus an hourly charge for flight hours flown. Costs for scheduled and unscheduled maintenance are set and customers are informed of them at the time of enrollment in the program.