Brazilian aircraft maker Embraer is targeting Nigerian and African airlines freighting with its converted E190 passenger jets capable of carrying 13 tonnes of cargo. In particular, the jet manufacturer is seeking to profit from the continent’s weak air, road and rail connections.
Embraer is promoting the converted E190 passenger jets as freighters capable of carrying up to 13-tonne cargo for medicines, fresh food, and other time-sensitive African cargo.
Air freight is considerably more expensive than moving goods by road, rail or sea. Airlines require only cargo valuable enough or extremely urgent to justify the higher cost.
More so, moving cargo across African countries is slow and expensive due to severe infrastructure deficits, border bureaucracy, and operational fragmentation. Major logistics obstacles including poor infrastructure such as aging rail networks, unpaved secondary roads, and congested coastal ports, limit reliable multi-modal transport.
Additionally, border delays and paperwork oftentimes by manual document verification and inconsistent customs systems cause trucks to wait days or weeks at cross-border posts. With this, it becomes extremely wasteful moving time-sensitive and valued cargo across the continent.
There is also high operating costs orchestrated by fuel price volatility, multiple localised taxes, informal fees, and high security risks, which contribute to drive up freight expenses.
The operational disconnection through a lack of integrated payment channels, tracking transparency, and digital coordination across regional systems hinder seamless supply chains on the continent.
As a result, Embraer plans to sell more regional passenger aircraft and converted E190 freighters in Africa. Each of these converted passenger aircraft can carry up to 13 tonnes of cargo.
Indeed, Embraer’s plan is purely a commercial target, rather than evidence of completed sales.
The Brazilian jet manufacturing company sees Africa’s weak roads, aging and often non-connected railways and poor or non-existing direct air links as a commercial opportunity. So far, the aircraft company has yet to disclose any African cargo customer, order or delivery date.
However, Embraer already has a significant African presence through airlines including Airlink, Kenya Airways and EgyptAir, which have been operating its regional jets.
For example, Kenya Airways, an East African national carrier, added the world’s quietest and one of most efficient passenger jets (Embraer) to its growing fleet.
According to Hussein Dabbas, managing director of Embraer specific for institutional relations in Africa and the Middle East, the continent’s limited connections created opportunities for smaller aircraft operating more frequently.
In an interview with Brazilian publication Exame, reported by UOL, Dabbas said Africa accounts for less than six percent of global air traffic despite having a population exceeding 1.3 billion, and a continental aggregate GDP in excess of $3 trillion.
Dabbas said journeys by air between African cities remain indirect. The aircraft regularly have to fly through Europe before reaching their designated African cities.
As a result of this inherent limited interconnectivity, passengers are often required to connect through European or Middle Eastern airports because no airline operates a commercially viable direct service between their origin and destination.
Dabbas, the Embraer managing director for institutional relations in Africa and the Middle East, cited for example, journeys routed through Paris before connecting most of the francophone cities; describing that as an example of the African inefficiency.
In particular, the Embraer boss argues that smaller aircraft such as their E190 jet can help airlines open thinner routes without taking the financial risk of trying to fill a large Boeing or Airbus jet.
With this thinking, Embraer wants to sell its converted E190 cargo aircraft to African operators, to overcome Africa’s weak regional air and surface connections.
Embraer argues that a carrier operating two or three weekly flights may also be able to offer a daily service with a smaller plane, thereby making the route more attractive to business passengers.
Turning passenger jets into freighters
Embraer has been promoting cargo versions of its first-generation E-Jets, the E190. The company removes the passenger seats, strengthens the cabin floor and installs a large cargo door, thereby converting an older passenger plane into a freighter capable of transporting up to 13 tonnes of time-sensitive cargo.
Such cargo include medicine, fresh food, e-commerce parcels and other time-specific goods between African cities where surface transportation is slow or unreliable.
Civil aviation analysts consider that converted E190 jets could compete with turboprop freighters, older Boeing 737s and unused capacity in the holds of passenger aircraft.
Embraer’s proposition draws strength from the constraints experienced in Africa’s cross-border road and rail, which make the suggestion particularly relevant in landlocked countries and regions such as Burkina Faso, Niger or Lesotho where moving cargo over a relatively short distance can take several days. But this is not the case in Europe where freighters operate particularly unhindered.
However, commercial aviation analysts argue that poor infrastructure alone might not make an air-cargo route profitable, indicating that Embraer must have to consider the economics.
But others see the appreciable growth taking place in African airlines. In early 2026, the continent’s airlines particularly beat global aviation growth with 11.7 percent passenger demand and an 18 percent cargo surge.
This is despite that they frequently face high financing costs, shortages of foreign currency and expensive maintenance requirements. Those constraints could limit purchases even where cargo demand exists.
Analysts say the Brazilian jet manufacturer’s stronger test will be seen whether it can identify routes on the continent where 13 tonnes cargo is sufficiently large enough to make money, even if small enough to avoid the risk of an underfilled conventional freighter.
