The economic turmoil in Asia-Pacific could provide turboprop manufacturers such as Aero International (Regional) (AI(R)) with a major opportunity, senior vice-president, commercial, Alain Brodin said at the show.
He says it is possible that airlines operating jets on marginal routes could move them to lower-cost operators which would use turboprops in a way similar to the retrenchment of the US industry in the early 1990s.
"You saw this process in America when the airlines were losing money and they transferred a lot of services on less profitable routes to smaller operators which used turboprops," says Brodin. "This was very positive for ATR aircraft. We have not seen this yet in this region but I believe it could happen as airlines look more closely at direct operating costs."
AI(R) is at Asian Aerospace (Stand A509) on the back of a record year of sales of its ATR and Avro RJ family of jets. It took 94 new orders, an increase of 60% on the previous year.
"It was a very good year, the best since 1991," says Brodin. "It was successful not only because of the number of orders but because of the quality of the customers."
It was also significant, he says, in that it was evidence that turboprops can compete successfully with regional jets.
"Contrary to the popular belief that regional jets will replace turboprops, what we saw last year was a demonstration that there is room for both."
Source: Flight Daily News
