Embraer negotiating $495 million aircraft sale to Surf Air: paper

Surf Air, a U.S. business aviation company based in Santa Monica, plans to expand its services to Europe in mid-2017 and needs a larger fleet to reach that goal, its CEO Simon Talling-Smith told the newspaper.

He said Surf Air is also talking to U.S. aircraft maker Textron, with an eye on its Cessna Citation CJ4 corporate jets.

The Embraer Phenom 300 is a light business jet that can carry 7 to 9 passengers and is Embraer's biggest selling executive aircraft, though current weak demand for business jets has been dragging on Embraer's results.

Embraer was not available for immediate comment.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; editing by Jason Neely)