The Embraer E195-E2 was designed as a regional jet, but airlines on four continents are quietly turning it into a holiday machine. The wildest example: Mongolia's Hunnu Air, a five-aircraft carrier based in Ulaanbaatar, now flies seasonal winter charters nonstop to the Vietnamese beach island of Phu Quoc — 2,598 miles, sometimes over six hours in the air. It's the longest regularly operated Embraer route in the world, and until recently the airline had to make a fuel stop in China with its older E190s.

It's not a one-off. Canada's Porter Airlines has built an entire winter sun network on the type, with more than 40 warm-weather routes planned for winter 2026/27 — including Ottawa to Liberia in Costa Rica (2,468 miles, nearly six hours) and a new six-hour Ottawa–Los Cabos service. South Africa's Airlink launches Cape Town–Mauritius on October 2, followed by Cape Town–Zanzibar the next day. In Europe, TUI fly Belgium runs Antwerp–Tenerife at just over five hours, and Widerøe previously flew Bergen to Lanzarote with the smaller E190-E2.

Why bother when a standard A320 or 737 could do the job? Capacity. These E195-E2s carry only around 124–136 passengers in a 2+2 layout with no middle seats — so a city like Ottawa doesn't need to fill 180+ seats several times a week to make Costa Rica work. Lower trip costs mean airlines can test thin, seasonal leisure routes that would be commercially risky with a bigger jet. There's a bonus for passengers too: no middle seat on a five-hour flight.

The aircraft itself helps in other ways. Embraer quotes a 3,000-nautical-mile range and 29% lower fuel burn than the previous E-Jet generation. Airports with short runways benefit too — Antwerp's 1,500-metre runway rules out most conventional narrowbodies, though TUI will still exit the airport in March 2027 due to demand limits.

For travellers, this means more direct winter-sun options from secondary cities: Mongolia to Vietnamese beaches, Canadian regional centres to Mexico and Costa Rica without connecting via Toronto, Cape Town to Indian Ocean resorts without touching Johannesburg. Airlink even timed its Saturday departures so holidaymakers avoid pre-dawn starts. The E2 order book — 504 firm orders and a 291-aircraft backlog, with big fleets at Porter, Azul, Avelo, SAS and KLM — suggests more of these long, thin holiday routes are coming.

Who should care? Anyone flying from a smaller city who wants nonstop beach flights without a hub connection — and without a middle seat.