ATR will announce further details of its net-zero roadmap for its turboprop aircraft family within the next two to three months. The French-Italian airframer is looking at different solutions that go beyond sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs), but it will only announce its strategy when it has a solid timeline, CEO Stefano Bortoli said on February 8 during an online media briefing. ATR to reveal its net-zero roadmap in the coming months. ATR is pushing hard to get 100-percent SAF fully certified by EASA no later than 2025 on its re-engined version with the new Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127XT. It has started flight testing pure SAF on one engine two weeks ago. Sustainable aviation fuels are an obvious step to reduce carbon emissions, which according to Bortoli will drop by 82 percent on the ATR. So far, ATR hasn’t revealed much of its medium and longer-term sustainability strategy on how it wants to get to net-zero emissions in 2050, although it signed up to the Toulouse Declaration last week that commits to this target. That the airframer is keeping quiet on (hybrid)electric and hydrogen as future solutions, doesn’t mean ATR isn’t studying them, said Bortoli. “We want to be able to deliver affordable solutions to our airlines. Our 200 operators worldwide are demanding a solution that is economically affordable and responsibly answering the need of decarbonizing aviation. In our interpretation, sustainable aviation fuels are the closest, time-wise, solution that we can bring to the market. But we aren’t stopping there. We are doing our homework to prepare for the next phase. We are studying different options, different alternatives, and together with our shareholders, we will announce the next step when these steps will be reachable with a timeline that is solid enough to be disclosed to the public. Definitely, we will have something to communicate in the next two to three months.” ATR is studying various options for technology to drive these propellers. (ATR) The ATR fleet is predominantly used by airlines that operate them to smaller and remote airports. SAFs will be easier to bring to these airports than the infrastructure that is needed for electric or hydrogen planes, which explains ATR’s current priority for SAFs. Bortoli welcomes initiatives by companies like Universal Hydrogen and ACIA Aero Leasing to offer hydrogen kits for installments on ATRs: “This interest in confirming the ideality and versatility of our platform and the fact that platform has definitely a future, otherwise nobody would invest in it. But we are preparing ourselves for this brand-new domain. We are doing our homework, a few of our engineers are working 100 percent on understanding which are the different options available and modules in terms of technological solutions versus economical propositions. Eventually, the point is to have a platform like our 72 being able to generate, through a more responsible way of flying, the equivalent amount of profit for the airline. As we have always said, we will bring technology to the market that is affordable, because we want people to fly from A to B for the same ticket price as today.” ATR is not worried about Embraer's new turboprop Currently, ATR has a monopoly on the turboprop market. De Havilland Canada has suspended production of the Dash 8-400 for a year now as it saw a drop in demand during the Covid crisis and still needs to decide on the location of its new assembly site. But later this year, Embraer will launch a family of brand-new 50-90 seater turboprops to compete with smaller regional jets. Bortoli isn’t worried about the Embraer: “The fact that somebody else is looking at our market segment is very reassuring for us. We have been living in a very competitive environment for many years. In our forty years’ history, there were seven players out there, offering different turboprop models. Eventually, we are here after forty years, celebrating our leadership and we have ideas that make us believe that we can be a player in this market in the next forty years. So having somebody competing will force us not to rest on our laurels. We will continue to invest in our product development and we will be smart in listening to customers and understand what they want and bringing to them solutions at the right time and at the right cost for them.” Asked if ATR will develop a clean-sheet aircraft, Bortoli said: “What customers are asking for is an aircraft that has the same performance of today’s ATR that is a versatile aircraft and a responsible aircraft in terms of answering the needs of 2020, 2030, 2035 passengers. We see that as an aircraft that is flying on SAFs and with improved propulsion. We will continue to listen to our customers and if and when they will ask for a brand new product, we will answer adequately to that need.” No need to grow the aircraft with more seats Fabrice Vautier, Senior Vice President Commercial, said that he is satisfied with the size of the current ATR 72, which sits between 70 and 78 seats. “Covid has caused a shift in the way airlines think. Before the crisis, they were very focused on coast per seat. Today, they have seen that their business can disappear in one day, so they look more at risk-mitigating solutions. Cost per trip is becoming a perimeter, so size isn’t the perimeter anymore. The 50-70 seat market has adapted and we don’t see a need and don’t have a plan for a bigger aircraft.” Closer to launch seems a Combi version with a cargo door at the back of the fuselage, said Vautier: “Definitely, the combi is a solution that has an interest. In remote areas, having the ability to serve with fewer passengers but at the same time bring essential goods, food, and supplies really is something that we see as interesting. We are evaluating different solutions. There is no firm decision, but we believe there is a need for such an aircraft.” Likewise, there is also interest in a fire-fighting version of the 42, but Bortoli said that ATR has other priorities on its development roadmap that offer better business opportunities. Flight testing of the 42-600S for short take-off and landings will start ‘this spring’ and should lead to certification around mid-2024, with the first delivery planned for late 2024. ATR plans to ramp up the production to fifty aircraft in 2024. (ATR) After a difficult 2020 with just ten deliveries, ATR in 2021 delivered 31 aircraft, of which fifteen in the fourth quarter. This includes the 1.600th ATR ever built, to Air New Zealand. About half of them have been taken up by lessors, confirming the growing position of the turboprop market with lessors. The airframer booked 35 gross orders and Letters of Intent, with net orders at 32 after the cancelation of three aircraft from one customer. It now has 196 aircraft on the backlog. As its shareholder Leonardo already said last November, the production rate will be ramped up to fifty aircraft from 2024. Deliveries in 2022 will in the “mid to high 30s”. Supply chain certainty looks pretty encouraging Bortoli acknowledges that there are industry-wide supply chain issues, but ATR has worked hard to protect its supply chain during the past two years, especially smaller suppliers. “Now that we are considering ramping up, there is again a dialogue with our suppliers, telling them what our expectations are, working with them so that they can deliver on time to us. Evidently, the crisis that has hit the market in terms of logistics and scarcity of raw materials might impact our own production flow but the returns we have from our supply chain so far are pretty encouraging, although this doesn’t mean there are no risks.” Last year, ten secondhand aircraft were redelivered and most of them converted to freighters. ATR is projecting demand for some 460 full freighters in the market with a payload capacity of up to nine tonnes. There are now six new 72-600Fs flying with FedEx, while another seventeen aircraft were converted into freighters last year. This brings the worldwide ATR freighter fleet to 140 aircraft, the majority of them the larger 72 as this type has more volume. Conversions have been going on for some twenty years. The total turboprop market (30-70 seats) has an immediate need for some 1.200 aircraft, many as replacements for older aircraft. Of the 31 deliveries last year, 75 percent was for replacement.
