Turboprop Turbulence
By Chris Smith
Something that's bugged me in recent years is the lack of new turboprops entering the market. Pioneering A350/Dreamliner-level innovations have not filtered down to turboprop level. There are two mainstream turboprop aircraft currently in production on any kind of scale - the ATR and the Q400, and both are a generation behind their larger jet peers. The ATR and Q400 at 50-70 seats serve the larger end of the market, with most other types fast approaching the end of their service life.
Active Turboprops
| 20 SEAT | 30 SEAT | 50 SEAT | 70 SEAT | |||
| Beechcraft 1900D | British Aerospace Jetstream 41 | ATR 42 | ATR 72 | |||
| British Aerospace Jetstream 32 | DHC-8-Q200 | DHC-8-Q300 | British Aerospace ATP | |||
| Britten-Norman BN-2T Islander | Dornier 328 | Fokker 50 | DHC-8-Q400 | |||
| DHC-6 Twin Otter | Embraer EMB-120 Brasilia | Saab 2000 | ||||
| Dornier 228 | Saab 340 | |||||
| Embraer EMB-110 Bandeirante | Short 330 | |||||
| Fairchild Swearingen SA-227 Metro | Short 360 | |||||
| Let L-410 Turbolet |
Even the above table excludes the smallest end of the market - remember Casair used PA-23s, PA-31s, Cessna 404s etc. The only real game in town in this segment is the Tecnam P2012 Traveller, and to be fair, it's shaping up to be a strong seller.
Revival Attempts
I think the industry must be recognising the same concerns as me, as there are a number of attempts to revive some of the above older types, unfortunately most of these efforts are unlikely to amount to much. The Islander soldiers on, but demand seems limited to a utility aircraft rather than a passenger transport. Viking Air have for a while been manufacturing an improved DHC-6-400 Twin Otter, enjoying enough success to go on to purchase the entire Dash 8 line, bringing back the De Havilland name with a view to reviving the Q300 to compliment the Q400. RUAG launched a Dornier 228-200NG but despite initial promise they couldn't produce the aircraft at a fast enough rate and ultimately have sold the programme to General Atomics, who are thought to be planning to continue production but it remains to be confirmed. Sticking with Dornier, the 328 was always held in the highest esteem, it was fast, green, comfortable, and looked great too, and now a company called Deutsche Aircraft has launched the D328eco, stretched by 2m to accomodate 43 passengers (10 more than the original). First flight is planned for 2024 with service entry in 2025, and the specs are as impressive and high-performance as the original. The final revival is the L-410NG, which is already in production and has been since 2018. Notice how many of those fall into the 20-seat bracket.
I wish all of these revivals the very best of luck, but I'm concerned they don't have the brand recognition of their predecessors, the marketing muscle, manpower or facilities to churn out the kind of numbers that the original models became accustomed to.
Regional Jets
Whilst writing this article, I've also realised that the same problem applies to regional jets; with development of the Mitsubishi Spacejet currently suspended, the entry-level is a whopping 88-seats courtesy of the Embraer 175E2 - and at the time of writing it has zero order backlog!! That said, jets are less of a concern given advancements in engineering mean turboprops should have closed the gap in speed when compared to the smaller CRJ/ERJs, and if range remains an issue well then such routes should be able to accommodate the larger E-Jets anyway if they're that far away! Bottom line, the need for sub-70 seat jets is no more.
Cost
I started to wonder if it's to do with cost rather than demand, and my findings seem to confirm that. It's not easy finding list prices for aircraft especially historic ones, below is the data I was able to find. Prices are in Dollars which is standard industry practice and adjusted for inflation.
| A/C TYPE | DISCONTINUED | PRODUCTION | ||
| ATR 42 | $19,500,000 | |||
| ATR 72 | $26,800,000 | |||
| Beechcraft 1900D | $7,500,000 | |||
| British Aerospace Jetstream 41 | $7,700,000 | |||
| DHC-6 Twin Otter | $3,200,000 (-300) |
$7,000,000 (-400) |
||
| DHC-8-Q200 | $13,000,000 | |||
| DHC-8-Q300 | $17,000,000 | |||
| DHC-8-Q400 | $21,000,000 | |||
| Dornier 328 | $8,000,000 | |||
| Embraer EMB-110 Bandeirante | $6,000,000 | |||
| Embraer EMB-120 Brasilia | $12,300,000 | |||
| Fokker 50 | $7,000,000 | |||
| Saab 340 | $10,000,000 | |||
| Saab 2000 | $15,000,000 | |||
| Short 360 | $6,000,000 |
As you can see, the gulf is huge, and for some reason the turboprops of today cost more than double that of their predecessors, and frankly with not a lot more bang for your buck! Seems to me the reason the market is failing is because customers can't afford the merchandise.
Economies of Scale
It is said the ATRs are so cheap to operate that they can turn a profit with a fairly light load, but if that's true it would be as true in the 80s as it is now and yet manufacturers of that time still felt the need to design all of these great smaller aircraft. To briefly move away from regional aircraft, this concept was demonstrated with the Airbus A318 and Boeing 737-600, they didn't sell because they were no cheaper to operate than the larger A319/B737-700, so customers figured they might as well have the extra seats to sell. What astounds me is, surely Airbus and Boeing are capable of anticipating this? Perhaps the answer lies in the 737-500, the predecessor to the -600 which despite being the weakest seller of that generation of 737s did sell well enough to be considered a success, thus so should the -600 have been. Skip forward to the new generation of these models and both Airbus and Boeing are very aware these models have no future - there is no 737-6MAX nor an A318NEO - yet here's the odd thing - the 737-7MAX and A319NEO have both flopped whereas their predecessors were smash hits - is there an unwritten rule stating the smallest variant of each model has to fail?! I don't understand it.
Affect
Why I'm so concerned about this is Teesside alone has benefited from a boom in regional connectivity flights demonstrating a demand for such travel still exists, and most of the appropriate aircraft types are living on borrowed time. Although Eastern Airways have improved their reliability significantly, one of the contributing factors of their previous struggle was BAe Systems withdrawing technical support for the Jetstream 41. Saab are said to have done the same for at least the 2000 if not the 340 as well. Loganair have demonstrated good intuition by purchasing ATR 42s to replace their Saab 340Bs - but 34 passengers to 48 is a fairly big jump, and a superficial look at the combined Eastern and Loganair route network from Teesside shows eight routes that should make that jump and two that are questionable. I know Loganair already use a 50-seater, but I'm working on the theory their Saab 340 offers more opportunities than the ERJ-145, and to that end it's not so much the routes we have got as the ones we haven't - Exeter, Glasgow and Norwich (in spite of the failed 2017 attempt) are just some of the routes that would work a dream with a D228NG or a L-410NG - but nothing bigger.
In ten years time, when ATRs and Q400s are all that's left, how many routes the world over will be going unserved because there's nothing left to serve them with?!