FLUG REVUE March 2003: Turboprop airliners come back

TURBOPROPS EXPERIENCE A REVIVAL

By Volker K. Thomalla

Anyone who takes a look around at a passenger airport in Germany today will be amazed at the aircraft types to be found there. Especially at airports which do not function as a hub, turboprop aircraft like the Metroliner, which will be familiar from the early days of European regional air transport twenty years ago, are making a comeback. Destinations that only two or three years ago were flown with the Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 are once again being serviced by turboprops. Jets may be chic, but they do not pay on every route, even if that is the clearly preferred choice of passengers. Turboprops are more economical, and with small turboprop aircraft airlines can continue to fly at a profit on routes on which even the smallest regional jet would only make a loss, due to the low volume of passengers. The fact that modern regional jets offer far greater passenger comfort than, say, the Metroliner is undisputed. For this reason, when passenger numbers and yields recover again that type is likely to be one of the first to disappear again. But at present the 19-seater planes are surprisingly fulfilling an important function once again.

The airports on the one hand are not particularly happy about the absence of jets on prestige routes, since in the eyes of passengers it is a black mark for an airport to have mainly propeller aircraft standing on the apron. But at the same time the airports must be pleased, as without turboprops these routes would simply have been slashed without any replacement and passengers would have had to switch to either a different airport or a different means of transport. Just how long this renaissance lasts will depend on the overall economic situation. As soon as the passenger numbers and average yield per passenger start to recover, the turboprops will be forced out again by the jets as fast as they arrived.

But, despite falling sales of new turboprop aircraft, they remain an important category in aviation. In the cargo business too they are on the ascendant. They are becoming more and more important as feeders for the cargo hubs. Conversion to freighters is giving second-hand ATR 42's and Saab 340's a second lease of life. Here too economy and low operating noise level play an important role in the choice of aircraft. Candidates for conversion are good second-hand aircraft which already have a service life as passenger aircraft under their belts and can be converted into feeder cargo planes at reasonable cost. As they are relatively cheap to purchase, the capital investment is low and the planes can be flown at a profit even if the amount of time they spend in the air is relatively low.

The ATR family, with its large fuselage diameter, has obvious advantages compared with its competitors, as it can offer a correspondingly large cargo volume. This trend is confirmed by the purchase of eight second-hand ATR 42's by FedEx Express, a subsidiary of the FedEx courier cargo service, on 20 January 2003. Customers are not bothered what aircraft type is used to transport their freight, as long as they can be sure it will be carried from A to B reliably, fast and cheaply. In this segment of air transport, the trump card of the ATR's, the Saab 340 and the Fokker 50 is their economy, which is demonstrating to the sceptics that we can expect them to remain on the scene for many years to come.

From page 4 of FLUG REVUE 3/2003

Last updated 15 February 2003

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