Gregory Polek has spent his entire career in aviation journalism with AIN, starting as a proofreader and assistant to then-managing editor Mary Mahoney in 1995 after serving an internship with&nbsp;New Jersey Monthly&nbsp;magazine and completing his B.A. degree in English/Writing at New Jersey’s William Paterson College. By 1997 Polek accepted a position as an associate editor, covering the regional airline beat for&nbsp;Aviation International News&nbsp;in place of retiring industry veteran Don Anderson. The assignment took Polek across North America and Europe to profile regional airlines varying in size and mission from the likes of floatplane operators Kenmore Air and Chalk’s Ocean Airways to regional jet operators such as SkyWest and American Eagle. Today, in his dual role as Air Transport Editor and International Airshow Editor, Polek writes, edits, and manages AIN’s commercial aviation content while overseeing each of the company’s daily international air show publications in Paris, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai. Most recently Polek has assumed oversight of daily coverage of the Helicopter Association International’s annual Heli-Expo convention.

Senior Editor

Gregory Polek

International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC) has finalized an order for the purchase of 50 E2 E-Jets from Embraer, including 25 E190-E2s and 25 E195-E2s, the Los Angeles-based AIG subsidiary announced Wednesday. The order, originally announced as a letter of intent at last month’s Paris Air Show, also includes options for another 50 airplanes. 
 
	ILFC expects deliveries to start in 2018 and run into 2023. Plans call for the E190E2--designed to use completely new wings and Pratt &amp; Whitney PW1000G geared turbofans, full fly-by-wire controls and improvements to various other systems—to reach the market in 2018, followed roughly a year later by the E195-E2 and in 2020 by the E175-E2. 
 
	The 97- to 114-passenger E190-E2 serves as the baseline model and retain its current seating capacity. However, the second model scheduled for EIS—the E195-E2—would carry three more rows of four-abreast passenger seats than the current E195 holds, giving it a maximum high-density capacity of 144 passengers once it enters service in 2019. Finally, plans call for the smallest of the three models, the E175-E2, to carry one more row of seats, raising its capacity range to 80 to 90 seats. Embraer has opted to exclude the 70-seat E170 from the project. 
 
	“We see opportunities to place this new jet within ILFC’s current customer base in all of our worldwide markets,” said ILFC Chief Executive Officer Henri Courpron. “We will also leverage access to the existing operators of the current version of Embraer to offer them the new E2." 
 
	Separately, Indianapolis-based Republic Airways announced Monday that it has secured financing for its order for 47 E175s through an affiliate of the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES). Republic plans to fly the airplanes under the terms of the capacity purchase agreement (CPA) with American Airlines announced in January.

Embraer Registers E2 Order from ILFC

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