Embraer E175 Short Wing (E75S) vs Long Wing (E75L)

E75S and E75L are not two aircraft. They are two ICAO type designators for the same Embraer E175, split by a wing change in 2013. The short-wing E75S is the E175 as Embraer built it from 2005: a 26 m span with small, conventional upturned wingtips. The long-wing E75L is every E175 delivered since, with the span extended to roughly 28.7 m and new swept winglets that cut fuel burn by around 6%. Fuselage, cabin, General Electric CF34-8E engines, cockpit and pilot type rating are identical, which is why airlines fly the two interchangeably and why the codes confuse anyone who watches a flight tracker.

ICAO issues a new designator when an aerodynamic change is large enough to alter performance for air-traffic purposes, and the long wing qualified. Airlines and booking systems, which care about seats rather than wings, use IATA codes instead: E75 for the short wing and E7W for the long. If your ticket says E7W you are on an E75L; if it says E75 you are on an E75S. In North America almost every E175 delivered to SkyWest, Envoy, Horizon, Mesa and the later Republic batches is an E75L, while Republic's 2007 to 2009 aircraft, Air Canada's original fleet and most European and Middle Eastern E175s delivered before 2013 are E75S.

Passenger experience

There is nothing to choose between them. Both have the E-Jet's 2-2 cabin with no middle seats, seats about 18 inches wide, overhead bins that take a wheeled carry-on, and the same 76-seat three-cabin layout in the United States or 82 to 88 seats in Europe. Noise, ride and legroom depend on the airline's configuration, not the wing. The long wing's only passenger-facing effect is that the airline burns a little less fuel; it makes no difference to the seat map, which is why booking sites show one E175 map for both.

How to tell them apart

On the ramp, look at the wingtips: a small upturned tip is the E75S, a large swept winglet that blends into a visibly longer wing is the E75L. In the air, a tracker will show the code once the aircraft is assigned. Registrations help too: any E175 delivered from 2013 onward is a long-wing aircraft, and the short-wing fleet, several hundred strong, is slowly shrinking as the originals age out. If you only need to know what you are flying on, the answer is simply an Embraer E175, and either code will do.