Embraer did not go it alone. From 2010 it gathered an international industrial team: Argentina’s FAdeA builds the tail cone, cargo door and landing gear doors; Aero Vodochody in the Czech Republic produces the rear fuselage; OGMA in Portugal, an Embraer subsidiary, makes sponsons and centre fuselage parts; BAE Systems supplies the fly-by-wire primary flight control system and Rockwell Collins the Pro Line Fusion avionics. The V2500-E5 was the first military application of the IAE engine.

Boeing signed cooperation agreements in 2012 and 2013 and in November 2019 the two companies announced a joint venture, Boeing Embraer – Defense, to market the aircraft. Boeing walked away in April 2020 when it terminated its wider deal with Embraer. At home, the original Brazilian order for 28 aircraft was cut to 22 in February 2022 as an austerity measure, and later to 19. Even so, by the first quarter of 2023 the Brazilian fleet had logged more than 8,000 flight hours, and at the end of March 2023 the aircraft received its Final Type Certificate, marking full operational capability.

Portugal, a programme partner since 2010, was the first European customer and received its first aircraft in late 2022 for 506 Squadron “Rinocerontes” at Beja. Among its first missions it flew a Black Hawk helicopter back from the United States, crossing the Atlantic directly from Providence, Rhode Island, to Ovar. Hungary ordered two in 2020, including an intensive care unit kit, for its airlift squadron at Kecskemét.

The Netherlands selected the C-390 in June 2022 to replace its C-130H Hercules and signed in July 2024. Austria chose it in September 2023 to replace its C-130Ks, and Sweden followed in 2024 and 2025 as part of a joint procurement with Austria and the Netherlands that includes options for seven more aircraft and a shared aeromedical module. The Czech Republic ordered two in October 2024, Slovakia entered talks, and Greece has been reported as planning to buy the type through an agreement with Portugal. For these air forces the argument was speed, payload and modern systems at a price competitive with the C-130J.

• C-390 Millennium: the standard transport, also configured for search and rescue, medical evacuation and aerial firefighting.
• KC-390: Brazilian Air Force designation for its fleet, fitted for air-to-air refuelling with two wing pods; the aircraft can also be refuelled in flight itself.
• Aeromedical module: a roll-on, roll-off intensive care unit ordered by the Netherlands in 2025 on behalf of the Dutch, Austrian and Swedish fleets.
• C-390 IVR: an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and maritime patrol version that Embraer and the Brazilian Air Force agreed to study in December 2024, a possible replacement for Brazil’s P-3 Orions.
• Agile Tanker: a boom-equipped concept that Embraer is developing for the United States market, with Northrop Grumman as a partner since 2025.

Embraer’s pitch rests on productivity rather than fuel burn. A turbofan transport burns more fuel per hour than a turboprop of similar size, but it cruises roughly a third faster, so it completes more sorties per day and spends fewer hours in the air for each tonne delivered. Embraer and the Brazilian Air Force reported that in the first three and a half years of operation the fleet flew more than 8,200 hours in about 6,000 flights with technical availability of around 80 per cent and a mission completion rate of 99.5 per cent, according to European Defence Review.

The V2500 engine family is in airline service worldwide, so spares and overhaul capacity are widely available. Purchase prices reported in European procurements, around €80 million per aircraft in 2024, include varying amounts of support and training. We give a wide, clearly labelled estimate for the hourly cost because no air force or Embraer has published an official figure.