NEW DELHI: The demanding global supply chain situations that have plagued Indian airlines in recent years will soon disappear, according to projections by French planemaker ATR.
The company expects its aircraft deliveries to return to pre-Covid levels until 2027-2028, with a slow easing of supply chain constraints in the aviation ecosystem.
In 2023, ATR delivered 36 aircraft, up from 68 in the pre-covid year of 2019.
“This year, our target is around 40,” Jean Pierre, ATR’s Asia-Pacific manager, told Mint.
“A supply chain is everything that is turned on or off. It’s about being vigilant and resetting the scenario in a culpable way for our suppliers. . . It’s a sensitive balance,” he said.
The French company manufactures regional turboprop aircraft, adding the ATR 42 and ATR 72, with capacity for between 48 and 78 passengers. In India, around a hundred regional aircraft are registered with scheduled Indian airlines, according to flight tracking data Flightradar24, and ATR occupies about 70% of this market.
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“We don’t need to put pressure on the chain of origin. We’ve noticed what happens when you do that in some programs. We need to be very careful,” Pierre said. We need to be between 60 and 80 (consistent with the year) in the long term. “
Pierre added that ATR is open to collaborations in India as it considers the country to be the leading aviation market in the world. ATR, founded in 1981 as a joint venture between France’s Aérospatiale (now Airbus) and Italy’s Aeritalia (now Leonardo), has been a supplier in India for about two decades.
“The (Indian) market is so big that we do want to be open and take advantage of all the opportunities. It would be foolish not to think about it,” Pierre said. “We’d be interested in the aspects. . . spare parts. “
ATR currently has spare parts warehouses in Paris, Auckland, Miami and Singapore, as well as visitor service centres in Miami, Toulouse, Singapore and Bangalore.
“I’m talking seriously to everyone (Indian airlines). The market has such massive demands for regional connectivity that we foresee a lot of moves to come,” said Pierre.
ATR aircraft have been used in India on routes called “Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik,” or Udan — the government’s regional airport progression program — because those planes are designed for use on shorter runways.
India’s largest airline, IndiGo, became a visitor to ATR in 2017 with an order for 50 aircraft, with a capacity of 78 passengers. It has so far secured deliveries of forty-five ATR aircraft, with the rest expected to be delivered this year.
IndiGo serves 8 sectors through ATR aircraft. Some of those routes come with Delhi-Dharamsala, Chennai-Mangalore, Ranchi-Kolkata, and Hubli-Bengaluru.
The state-owned company Alliance Air has a fleet of 20 ATR aircraft and the new airline fly91 leased two ATR-72 aircraft.
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