ATR

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ATR (Aerei da Trasporto Regionale or Avions de transport régional) is a French-Italian aircraft manufacturer headquartered on the grounds of Toulouse Blagnac International Airport in Blagnac, France.

It was formed in 1981 by Aérospatiale of France (now EADS) and Aeritalia (now Alenia Aermacchi) of Italy. Its primary products are the ATR 42 and ATR 72 aircraft.

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Indonesia's Garuda Expands Fleet With $840 Million ATR Deal

PT Garuda Indonesia (GIAA) will lease as many as 35 ATR 72-600 turboprop aircraft from Nordic Aviation Capital to modernize its regional fleet amid rising travel demand in Southeast Asia's largest economy.
Garuda has signed a firm commitment for 25 of the planes, with options for 10 more, ATR said in a statement today. The deal is worth more than $840 million, and deliveries of the aircraft will start next month.

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The turboprop planes will help Garuda increase its services to remote areas of Indonesia as the ATRs can land on airports with shorter runways, the carrier said in a separate statement.

The aircraft, which can seat up to 74 passengers, will accommodate 70 in Garuda's configuration, said ATR, which has also sold its planes to Indonesia's PT Lion Mentari Airlines.



About a 100 ATR aircraft will be operating in Indonesia in the next two years as the planemaker has won more than 85 orders from the country since 2008, it said in the statement.

State-controlled Garuda and rival Lion Air are ordering more planes as economic growth enables more of Indonesia's 253 million people to travel by air. Domestic carriers flew 70 million passengers in 2012, up from 37 million in 2008, according to CAPA Centre for Aviation.

NAC, based in Billund, Denmark, in June placed an order for 90 of the European turboprops, including the smaller ATR 42-600 model. With the addition of the new aircraft, the company will manage a fleet of about 150 ATRs.

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Lao Airlines plane crashes into Mekong river, killing 44

A Lao Airlines plane flying in stormy weather crashed into the Mekong river in southern Laos on Wednesday, killing all 44 people on board, among them nationals of 10 countries.

The virtually new ATR-72 turboprop plane flying from the capital Vientiane crashed at about 4.10 p.m. (0910 GMT) just eight kilometers (five miles) short of its destination Pakse, which is near the borders of both Thailand and Cambodia.

The airline said in a statement it had yet to determine the cause of the crash, in which a senior aviation official said the tail end of Typhoon Nari may have been a factor.

Those killed were mostly Lao nationals. But seven French nationals were also killed, the country's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.

South Koreans, Australians, Canadians, Taiwanese, Chinese, Burmese and Vietnamese and five Thais were also among the dead, said Thailand's foreign ministry spokesman, Sek Wannamethee.

Several officials confirmed none of the passengers or crew survived.

Lao Airlines is the national carrier of the communist state and has operated since 1976. Its aircraft carried 658,000 passengers last year and it has a fleet of just 14 planes, mostly propeller-driven.

Southern Laos was affected by Typhoon Nari, which hit the region on Tuesday killing 13 people in the Philippines and five in Vietnam.

Vestiges of the storm might have caused the plane to crash, Yakua Lopangka, Director General of the Department of Civil Aviation, told the Vientiane Times newspaper.

Thai television showed a photograph of the plane partly submerged in shallow water on a stretch of the Mekong, the tail severed, next to a handful of rescuers in small boats.

State-run news agency KPL quoted a witness saying strong gusts of wind blew the plane off course and rescue attempts were complicated by a lack of roads near the crash site.

Lao Airlines has six ATR-72 planes, a European turbo-prop aircraft co-manufactured by Airbus parent EADS and Italian aerospace firm Finmeccanica.

In a statement, ATR said the aircraft that crashed was its latest ATR 72-600 model, designed to seat between 68 and 74 people. It had left the production line in March this year.

ATR said Laos authorities would lead an investigation into the crash, whose cause had not been determined.

Lao Airlines operates on seven domestic routes and has international flights to China, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore.

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SAS-branded ATR 72-600 enters Jet Time fleet

Danish operator Jet Time has taken delivery of the first ATR 72-600 with which it will conduct regional services for Scandinavian Airlines.

SAS Group agreed the wet-lease with Jet Time – which is taking six ATRs from lessor Nordic Aviation Capital – earlier this year.

The aircraft will be painted in Scandinavian Airlines colours and are intended for services out of Stockholm and Copenhagen.



"With the smaller aircraft we can adapt our traffic to our customer's needs with many frequencies and destinations," says SAS chief commercial officer Joakim Landholm.

Deliveries of the remaining five ATR 72-600s will be completed by early 2014, says the airframer.

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Bangkok Airways signs for nine ATR 72s

Bangkok Airways has signed an agreement for nine ATR 72-600s, sources close to the discussions say.

The turboprops are expected to be direct purchases from the airframer as part of the boutique carrier's fleet renewal plans.

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Bangkok Airways signs for nine ATR 72s

Bangkok Airways has signed an agreement for nine ATR 72-600s, sources close to the discussions say.

The turboprops are expected to be direct purchases from the airframer as part of the boutique carrier's fleet renewal plans.

Bangkok Airways could not be contacted for comment.

Flightglobal's Ascend Online database shows that Bangkok Airways has eight ATR 72-500s in its fleet. The turboprops were built between 2001 and 2008. It also has a fleet of 16 Airbus A319s and A320s

The carrier had earlier told Flightglobal Pro that it is also likely to add either the A320neo or the Boeing 737 Max to its fleet.

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ATR Reports Higher Deliveries, Revenue

Turbo-prop aircraft maker ATR said on Thursday it delivered 74 aircraft in 2013, bringing in record revenue of USD$1.63 billion, up 13 percent from the year before.

Deliveries rose 12 percent from 64 the previous year, the Franco-Italian company said.

The company, which competes with Canada's Bombardier for sales of regional turbo-prop aircraft, said it had 89 firm orders and 106 options, giving it a backlog of 221 aircraft at the end of the year.

ATR is jointly owned by European aerospace company Airbus Group and Italy's Finmeccanica.

Industry executives have said the Toulouse-based firm is studying the launch of a new aircraft with 90 seats, expanding its popular 72-seat model, subject to agreement over scarce engineering resources with its shareholders.

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Dubai Aerospace Enterprise orders 40 ATR 72-600s

The United Arab Emirates' leasing firm books regional aircraft for the first time

On the occasion of the Singapore Airshow, the European turboprop aircraft manufacturer ATR and the United Arab Emirates' leasing firm Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE) today announced a contract for the purchase of 40 ATR 72-600s, which includes firm orders for 20 aircraft and options for 20 additional ones. DAE is the largest aviation leasing firm in the Middle East with an aircraft portfolio of approximately $3.3 billion comprised of B737s, B777s, A320s and A330s. Today's deal represents DAE's first order for regional aircraft. The 20 firm aircraft are scheduled to deliver between 2015 and 2018.

The contract is a major milestone in ATR's recent history and underlines the increasing interest of leasing firms from all over the world in the ATR aircraft family. The ATR 72-600, equipped with new avionics suite and totally redesigned cabin interiors, has become in recent years the preferred regional aircraft below 90 seats for lessors and airlines operating short-haul networks.

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Azul - Linhas Aereas Brasileiras - ATR-72-600, Parked in the static display at this years Farnborough 2014 Air Show

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Iran Air's Shopping Spree Continues With ATR

After the announcement last week for 118 Airbus jetliners, Iran Air has placed an order for up to 40 ATR 72-600 (20 firm plus 20 options) valued at €1 billion ($1.1 billion) at list prices.

ATR said that commercial discussions were held in Rome and Paris, on the occasion of the visit of the President of Iran, Hassan Rohani, and the country's Minister of Transportation of Iran Abbas Ahmad Akhoundi. "During the negotiations, the Italian and French states played an important role to achieve the signing of this deal," the planemaker said.



Since 1995, Iran's aviation industry was subject to an embargo that prevented Western manufacturers from selling equipment and provide maintenance logistics to the aging country's air transport fleet, which averages 26.8 years of service, according to airfleets.net.

The embargo has now been lifted after Iran agreed to curb its nuclear program.

ATR is "honored to take part in this new era in Iran by providing the national airline with aircraft that will strongly contribute to reinforce and boost regional transportation across the country" declared Patrick de Castelbajac, Chief Executive Officer of ATR.

The decision seems to be another blow to Bombardier, which has been seeking  more orders for its Dash 8 Q400 turboprop, which currently has a backlog for 48 aircraft. In the recent years, Bombardier has lost market share in certain regional markets such as the Caribbean, where carriers such as Bahamasair, LIAT and Caribbean Airlines, both traditional Dash 8 operators, opted to switch their fleets to ATR aircraft.

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