ATR CEO Nathalie Tarnaud Laude
Multiple engine manufacturers are interested in powering the future ATR EVO family, which is slated for entry into service (EIS) in the early 2030s, but the turboprop airframer has delayed a go-ahead decision from 2023 to early 2025.
Plans for the hybrid-powered EVO family were released in May 2022. The EVO is slated to be 20% more fuel efficient than current models, with 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) compliance. At the time of the original announcement, ATR had planned to make a launch decision by 2023.
However, speaking at the Paris Air Show June 20, ATR CEO Nathalie Tarnaud Laude said the EVO program launch decision will now be taken by the beginning of 2025, with a view to EIS in 2030.
“The most important thing in our industry is the entry into service of the aircraft; it’s not the launch of the product,” Tarnaud Laude said. “It has always been the case that this program will [achieve EIS] in 2030. However, we just need a little bit more time to make sure that the choice of technologies that we’re putting together are the right ones, especially on the propulsion side.”
Some engine suppliers have already responded to the request for EVO engine proposals, which was released last year. “We will study first responses by the end of this year,” she said. “There is not only one [engine manufacturer] bidding.”
Tarnaud Laude rebuffed a suggestion from the audience that ATR might be taking its foot off the pedal, following Embraer’s decision to delay its rival new turboprop program.
“We usually do not comment on other competitors’ decisions, but it probably shows that their initial plan was to come on the market with a similar technology aircraft to the one that we currently have,” Tarnaud Laude said. “We are seeing many, many players interested in hybridization and I am convinced that we will have competition in the future.”
She stressed that the EVO program is aiming for a 20% efficiency improvement. “The idea is not to add another 5%,” she said.
ATR SVP engineering Daniel Cuchet said he was “quite happy” with the quality of the engine suppliers’ responses on his desk so far. “The results are already quite good,” he said. When quizzed on which companies had responded, he declined to comment, saying only that he had received “very good offers from more than one engine manufacturer.”
He added that the ATR 42-600 short-takeoff-and-landing [STOL] program is also progressing. ATR is reviewing the data and plans to restart the flight-test program later this year.
“The prototype aircraft is undergoing modifications in our facility. We are installing all the flight-test instruments, the new VTP [vertical tail plane] and the new rudder that we received recently,” Cuchet said.
The ATR 42-600 STOL is expected to be certified in early- to mid-2025.
