MUMBAI, India (AP) — Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica SA, or Embraer, said Wednesday it aims to deliver 175-180 planes globally in 2008, according to a senior company executive.
Embraer, which specializes in passenger jets for short- and medium-range routes, said it was currently operating at full capacity.
''We want the balance between deliveries and new orders to be a stable and sustainable one,'' Orlando Neto, the managing director of Embraer Asia Pacific told reporters on the sidelines of an aviation finance conference in Mumbai.
The Asia-Pacific region will comprise 20-25 percent of the total aircraft Embraer will sell globally by 2012, compared with 5 percent now, Neto said.
The smaller jets are attractive to airlines that don't want to risk unfilled seats on larger planes that use much more fuel.
Embraer is in talks with Indian carriers to supply planes, he said, but gave no details.
India's aviation industry is one of the fastest growing in the world. Last month India's aviation minister Praful Patel said that Indian carriers were expected to increase their fleet of aircraft from the current 400 to about 2,500 by 2020.
Embraer, the world's fourth-largest plane maker, is a formerly state-owned company that nearly collapsed in the 1990s but added nearly 4,500 Brazilian workers and a graveyard shift last year to boost production amid rising demand for its commercial and executive jets.
