Mandarin Airlines (AE, Taichung Ching Chuan Kang) is planning to retire its Embraer fleet within the next three years, an updated fleet renewal plan filed with the Taiwanese Civil Aeronautics Administration (TWCAA) has revealed.
According to the Central News Agency (CNA), two of the carrier's six ERJ 190-100ARs will be retired each year as their leases expire. The first pair is due to leave the fleet next month (October), the plan said.
The regional carrier took delivery of eight leased E190 jets from June 2007 on an eight-year contract and kept six of them for another five years. The sextet's average age is around 12.5 years.
The ch-aviation fleets module shows Mandarin Airlines leases four of its E190s from GECAS with the other two sourced from TrueNoord. From June 2007, the China Airlines (CI, Taipei Taoyuan) subsidiary took delivery of a total of eight leased E190s on eight-year contracts. Two of the octet, msn 19000167 and 19000175, were phased out at the end of their contracts in 2015 while the remaining six had theirs extended by another five years.
In 2019, China Airlines unveiled its short-haul fleet renewal plan wherein it has ordered sixteen A321neo and will lease a further 14 of the type. An unspecified number will be placed into service with Mandarin Airlines.
Aside from the Embraers, Mandarin Airlines also operates seven ATR72-600s alongside three A320-200s wet-leased from Tigerair Taiwan (IT, Taipei Taoyuan). Its network spans 22 cities and towns across Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Viet Nam, and Japan.
