ATR pitches US regional airlines on a three-class turboprop with forward boarding
ATR hopes to enter production by 2030, pending commercial orders to justify the undertaking.
Franco-Italian airframer ATR is again pitching US carriers on a three-class turboprop to replace ageing regional jets.
The company hopes to capitalise on an industry-wide premiumisation push and congested airspace to sell an aircraft type – a turboprop – unfamiliar to most American travellers.
The aspirational modified variant of an ATR 72-600 would feature anywhere from 30 to 78 seats depending on configuration. A scale model ATR brought to the Regional Airlines Association (RAA) annual conference this week in Washington, DC had 50 seats across three classes: first, premium-economy and economy – mirroring the fare structure found on most US mainline aircraft.
“People don’t really care anymore whether they board a prop plane or a jet plane,” ATR’s chief commercial officer Alexis Vidal tells FlightGlobal. “What they care about is how convenient is it.”
ATR displayed a mock interior of its proposed three-cabin 72-600 at the RAA event. Source: Graham Rapier/FlightGlobal.
The mock-up cabin is a significant upgrade from the digital image he used to pitch regional carriers on the concept last year, Vidal jokes.
Proposed engineering and design changes include a forward boarding door, replacing a cargo compartment on the current aircraft– and additional luggage storage space – tweaks intended to enable the aircraft to integrate more seamlessly with mainline operations.
“Airlines want to connect to gates and have boarding bridge capability,” says Vidal. “I think culturally, while it’s great for ATR to board from the rear in many places in the world, here in the US the infrastructure is such [that] if you want to go to bigger hubs, you need to have these forward passenger doors.”
ATR is targeting regional city pairs — Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Indianapolis among them, per Vidal — that have lost direct air service as carriers consolidated around hub-and-spoke networks in recent decades. It says the turboprop can save up to 45% on fuel burn resulting in 30% lower fuel costs.
Premium scheduled-charter operator JSX in December 2025 launched service using four ATR turboprops on flights between Santa Monica, California, to Las Vegas, Napa, Phoenix and Oakland. Silver Airways, the only other US scheduled-passenger ATR operator, ceased operations in June 2025.
ATR displayed a mock interior showing a three-cabin configuration on its 72-600.
US airlines operate about 300 50-seat jets, including MHIRJ CRJ200s and Embraer ERJs, down from about 750 on decade ago, according to fleet data provider Cirium.
Vidal predicts retirements could peak around 2030 as ageing CRJ’s reach their maximum lifecycles.
MHIRJ, the Mitsubishi subsidiary that owns the CRJ programme, has disputed the notion of a near-term CRJ200 retirement boom, saying the jets will remain active until 2040, while insisting no other aircraft can match their capabilities.
MHIRJ is also converting existing CRJ into similar three-class layouts to meet demand for aircraft that fit airline scope requirements.
Vidal describes ATRs as being more comfortable for passengers than 50-seat jets, citing the turboprop’s larger cabin.
“We are bigger in all dimensions,” he says of ATRs. “We are wider, we are taller. And we have a larger aisle as well.”
ATR wants to deliver its first modified 72-600 by 2030, provided it can garner enough commercial interest to make the design changes. Vidal declined to detail any specific customer conversations or order size that could catalyse production and certification work.
“I think we proved that the old legacy thinking of ‘people will not want to board a prop plane’ is just a thing of the past,” says Vidal.
The post ATR pitches US regional airlines on a three-class turboprop with forward boarding first appeared on FlightGlobal.
Source: www.flightglobal.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.