Embraer ERJ 135

Short, slim and with a nose that almost doesn’t stop: the Embraer ERJ 135 is the smallest member of the ERJ family and, for many spotters, a piece of regional flying nostalgia. Around the turn of the millennium it flew for Continental Express, American Eagle, Luxair, British Midland and many smaller airlines; today it has become rare. It remains fascinating anyway – not least because it gave rise to the Legacy 600 business jet, which haunts the flight trackers under the same type code. Here you learn how to recognize the ERJ 135, how it differs from the ERJ 145 and the Legacy, and where you can still catch it.

What is the Embraer ERJ 135?

The ERJ 135 is a twinjet regional jet from Embraer and belongs to the ERJ family, whose base model is the 50-seat ERJ 145. In the mid-1990s airlines asked for an even smaller jet for thin routes on which 50 seats were too many. Embraer answered in 1997 with the launch of the ERJ 135: instead of developing a new aircraft, the engineers shortened the ERJ 145 fuselage by about 3.5 meters – one fuselage section ahead of and one behind the wing was dropped.

The result flew for the first time in July 1998, according to widespread reports on July 4. Certification by the Brazilian authorities, the US FAA and the European JAA followed in 1999. In July 1999 Continental Express and American Eagle put the type into scheduled service, and the French carrier Flandre Air had already committed as the European launch customer in 1997.

Because the ERJ 135 is so closely related to the ERJ 145, the two share most of their parts and systems. For airlines that was a strong argument: pilots of the ERJ 135, the ERJ 140 and the ERJ 145 fly with a common type rating, and maintenance and spare parts inventories can be pooled. An airline could therefore mix small and large jets without building two separate fleets.

Technology and cabin

Externally the ERJ 135 follows the classic pattern of many regional jets of its time: two rear-mounted engines, a T-tail and a slim fuselage with a low-set wing. It is powered by two Rolls-Royce AE 3007A series turbofans, which deliver about 31 to 33 kN of takeoff thrust depending on the version. Thrust reversers were an option; not every aircraft has them.

The cabin is narrow: three seats per row, a single seat on the left, a double seat on the right, with an aisle in between. A maximum of 37 passengers fit in. The passenger door is at the front left and has an integrated staircase – handy for airports without jet bridges or stair trucks. A cruise speed of up to Mach 0.78 and a service ceiling of 37,000 ft make the ERJ 135 faster on regional routes than the turboprops it often replaced.

There are two main variants:

• ERJ 135ER (Extended Range): the base version.
• ERJ 135LR (Long Range): more fuel on board and more powerful engines, giving a longer range of about 3,200 kilometers depending on the source and a maximum takeoff weight of about 20 tons.

From the outside you can’t see the difference between the ER and LR. For you as a spotter, telling it apart from its siblings and from the business jet matters more anyway.

The ERJ family compared

The three scheduled-service versions differ mainly in fuselage length and seat count. Note: the ERJ 140 shares the type code E135 with the ERJ 135. Wing, engines, tail and cockpit are practically identical.

Model	ICAO code	Length	Seats
ERJ 135	E135	about 26.3 m	up to 37
ERJ 140	E135	about 28.5 m	up to 44
ERJ 145	E145	about 29.9 m	up to 50

At 44 seats the ERJ 140 sits between the two and is about 1.4 meters shorter than the ERJ 145. It was created mainly for the US market, where pilot contracts limited the size of regional jets. The ERJ 135 is the shortest of the three – the fewer windows you count between the door and the wing, the more likely you have it in front of you.

From the ERJ 135 to the Legacy 600

Perhaps the most important derivative of the ERJ 135 doesn’t fly for airlines at all today. In 2000 Embraer unveiled a business jet based on the ERJ 135 at the Farnborough Airshow, first marketed as the Legacy 2000 and from the mid-2000s as the Legacy 600. For the conversion the jet received additional fuel tanks in the rear and ahead of the wing, winglets, a reworked wing-fuselage fairing and a modernized cockpit. Instead of 37 passengers, the cabin typically carries 13 people in several zones – but with much greater range.

The business jet came onto the market in 2002, and from 2011 the Legacy 650 with even more range rounded out the program. In 2020 Embraer stopped selling the Legacy 650. By then about 290 Legacy 600/650s had been built – clearly more than ERJ 135s for airlines. There was also the Legacy Shuttle, a version without extra tanks and with 19 to 37 seats in an airliner layout.

For spotters that means: an “E135” on the radar today is very likely a business jet. If you like business aircraft anyway, take a look at the guide Spotting business jets.

Feature	ERJ 135 (airliner)	Legacy 600/650
Wingtips	straight, no winglets	with winglets
Cabin	up to 37 seats, 1+2	business cabin, usually around 13 seats
Registration	airline register	often private or charter registrations
Location at the airport	airline gates, apron	general aviation terminal

Common mix-ups

Besides its own family there are other regional jets with a similar layout:

Mix-up	How to tell them apart
Embraer ERJ 145	fuselage about 3.5 m longer, more windows ahead of the wing
Embraer Legacy 600	winglets on the wingtips, business jet livery
Bombardier CRJ200	shorter, rounder nose, four seats per row, winglets
Dornier 328JET	engines under the wings, high-wing layout

The CRJ200 is the classic competitor from Canada and often operated for the same regional airlines in the US. With its shorter nose and winglets it looks clearly different once you have seen the two types side by side. The article How to tell regional jets apart gives an overview of all the small jets.

Operators: past and present

The ERJ 135’s heyday lay between 1999 and the early 2010s. In the US, Continental Express, operating for Continental Airlines and run by ExpressJet, and American Eagle, today Envoy Air, were among the launch customers. American Eagle flew a mixed fleet of ERJ 135s and ERJ 145s for American Airlines. Chautauqua Airlines also used the type.

In Europe the ERJ 135 was at home with many smaller companies. Historical operators included:

• Luxair from Luxembourg Airport, which used ERJ 135s and ERJ 145s before switching to other types.
• British Midland and later bmi regional – until its end in February 2019 the British regional airline still had three ERJ 135s alongside 14 ERJ 145s in its fleet.
• Loganair, which according to fleet overviews also used ERJ 135s from 2019 to 2022 before ATR turboprops replaced them.
• Eastern Airways, which flew 37-seat ERJ 135s from 2010. The airline itself ceased operations in October 2025.
• Smaller companies such as Flandre Air in France, City Airline in Sweden and Jetmagic in Ireland – all long since history.

Outside Europe and the US the ERJ 135 flew, for example, with South Africa’s Airlink. There are also government and military operators: the Belgian Air Component used two ERJ 135s and two ERJ 145s from 2001 to 2020 for passenger and VIP transport, and in Thailand the navy, among others, uses the ERJ 135LR. How to track down such aircraft is shown in the article Spotting government aircraft.

And today? As of October 2026 the most important active operator is the US provider JSX. It flies ERJ 135s and ERJ 145s with 30 seats each as public charter from small terminals, including in Las Vegas, Burbank, Dallas Love Field and Orange County. In addition, individual aircraft are on the move with smaller charter and government operators. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland an ERJ 135 in scheduled service is now a real stroke of luck.

Spotting tips for the ERJ 135

The ERJ 135 is one of the smallest jets that ever flew in scheduled service. That affects your planning.

• Use tracking cleverly. Set E135 as a filter, but check every result for operator and registration to weed out Legacy business jets. The best way to follow flight movements is covered in the guide to Flight tracking with ADS-B.
• Plan for plenty of focal length. At a good 26 meters long, the ERJ 135 fills the frame at the same distance much less than a medium-haul jet. Which focal length makes sense is explained in the article Lenses for plane spotting.
• Choose a side view. Because fuselage length is the decisive feature against the ERJ 145, side shots on approach or while taxiing are the most informative.
• Plan the light beforehand. With slim fuselages and small windows, side light brings out the details. You can read how to work out the sun position in the sun position guide.

If you want to hunt the ERJ 135 specifically, your best bet is in the US. At Las Vegas Airport, where JSX operates a base, Sunset Park is a well-known spot overlooking the approaches. Keep in mind that JSX departs from separate terminals and the aircraft do not stand at the big gates.

Why the ERJ 135 disappeared so quickly

The ERJ 135 was a child of its time. In the late 1990s airlines worldwide replaced turboprops with small jets because passengers saw them as more modern and faster. But the economics of a jet with only 37 seats depend heavily on the fuel price. When kerosene costs rose in the 2000s, the math for such small jets became harder and harder: the cost per seat was clearly higher than on larger types.

Many airlines therefore parked their ERJ 135s early or moved up to larger regional jets like the Embraer E175, while others returned to economical turboprops. Embraer ended production of the entire ERJ family in 2020 after more than 1,200 aircraft built. With a good 130 orders according to industry reports, the ERJ 135 made up only a small share of that. Its legacy lives on mainly in the business jet segment.

Conclusion

The Embraer ERJ 135 is the most compact interpretation of the ERJ family: a shortened ERJ 145 with 37 seats, rear-mounted engines and a long nose. As an airliner it had only a short heyday, but as the basis of the Legacy 600 and 650 it had a long second career. For spotters it is a rarity today – almost gone in Europe, still to be found with a few operators in the US. If you see one, log it.