Greg Foran is Confident on the Return of Longhaul Travel

Pushing Back: Inside the Issue
Are airlines seeing any signs that extremely strong demand is weakening? It’s something everyone’s closely watching for as carriers begin reporting their fourth quarter results. Delta kicked things off on Friday and — rest assured — its demand outlook remains exceedingly bullish.
American, for its part, now expects much stronger fourth quarter profits than originally anticipated. Must be nice when one of your closest rivals experiences an $800 million dollar-plus meltdown. United will report this week.
Last week, U.S. airlines faced another operational headache, this time courtesy of the FAA and its Jurassic-era software. Also in the U.S., Spirit’s pilots ratified a new contract. Across the world in China, Boeing’s 737 Max is back in the air. Another new startup aims to launch in India. Australian startup Bonza receives its operating license. And in Spain, airports were back to near 2019 levels of traffic by late 2022.
It’s now early 2023, and fourth quarter earnings season is underway.
Airline Weekly Lounge Podcast
Welcome to fourth quarter airline earnings season. Oil prices have come down from the peak of the year but labor costs are climbing as the system of pulleys and levers that determine the industry’s costs continue to fluctuate. Plus, the ongoing evolution in air service to small cities across the U.S. Listen to this week’s episode to find out. A full archive of the ‘Lounge is here.
Weekly Skies
After two years of airline industry hell, Delta Air Lines was happy to report that “2022 was a strong year.” It didn’t start that way, with nearly $800 million in first quarter losses — operating margin in the period was negative 10 percent. But then came a swift and robust revival. Delta earned a positive 12 percent operating margin in both the second and third quarters. And on Friday, it unveiled — guess what? — another 12 percent operating margin for the fourth quarter. So much for seasonality.
Bring it all together, and Delta’s full-year operating margin for 2022 was 8 percent, down from 14 percent in 2019. The question now is how will earnings unfold in 2023? So far, so good, given what Delta describes as ongoing booking strength. Transatlantic markets appear to be firing on all cylinders (even March is morphing into a peak month). Latin America is performing “very well,” especially markets within narrowbody reach of Delta’s hubs. Asia-Pacific is well along its recovery path with Australia and Korea producing record profits, and Japan set for a strong summer; China is the only wild card left, and the reopening of its borders is encouraging. Premium demand continues to outperform. Same for SkyMiles, its loyalty program. Its lucrative partnership with American Express grows more lucrative by the year. Corporate travel, Delta thinks, is poised for revival as bankers, consultants, lawyers, accountants, and the like can once again meet clients as offices welcome back workers; corporate bookings for January indeed look promising, albeit somewhat hard to compare with 2019 given holiday calendar shifts. “I have never seen a more constructive backdrop for the industry,” said CEO Ed Bastian during Delta’s fourth-quarter earnings call.
What’s not to like? Well, Delta’s costs are rising rather sharply, with a tentative new pilot contract delivering additional expenses if ratified. After a “very difficult” 2022 operationally, the risk of growing beyond what system infrastructure can handle remains. Nevertheless, Delta expects a fruitful 2023, eyeing a first quarter operating margin of 4-6 percent. Full-year 2023 operating margin should register 10-12 percent. Declining fuel prices, assuming they don’t reverse course, would help.
Delta is in the meantime repaying debt, reinstating employee profit sharing, developing international joint ventures, and planning to offer free high-speed Wi-Fi for all customers. A key means of easing unit cost pressures will be restoring capacity removed during the pandemic, thus boosting asset and employee productivity.
Former Kingfisher Exec to Launch New Indian Regional Carrier, Fly91
Fly91, a new Indian airline named after the country’s telephone code, aims to take advantage of India’s rising middle class by focusing its services on second and third-tier cities. The carrier hopes to start operations by the fourth quarter.
Heralded by Manoj Chacko, the former executive vice-president of the defunct Kingfisher Airlines and the man who set up the India business for risk management group Fairfax group, Fly91 will be the first airline to be based in India’s southwestern coastal city of Goa. India-based investment firm Convergent Finance anchors Fly91’s initial $25 million investment with Harsha Raghavan, managing partner at Convergent, as its chairman with Chacko as CEO.
Speaking to Airline Weekly, Chacko said Fly91 will serve India’s regional airports, from where about 30 percent of India’s domestic passengers originate and which has so far been underserved by existing airlines.
“In spite of having the spending power, when people from smaller towns and cities need to get to a bigger city, they’d either have to drive for around 10 hours or take an overnight train. That’s the space that that we are focusing on,” he said.
Close to 58 airports still fall under the Indian government’s Regional Connectivity Scheme — which are airports which are unserved or underserved. “We see that as a huge opportunity,” Chacko said. And of the 131 operational airports in India, around 20 percent do not have flights serving them.
Flying in India is concentrated on some popular routes as almost 68 percent of the domestic traffic touch one of the country’s 10 busiest airports, there’s a need for second and third tier cities to get onto the air connectivity map, according to Chacko. Only about five percent of domestic seat capacity is deployed on regional routes, Chacko said, compared to roughly double that in mature markets like the U.S. and Europe.
Fly91 will operate ATR 72-600 aircraft on flights of 45-90 minutes in duration connecting the smaller cities in the southern state of Karnataka and Maharashtra in western India. “We will be on an operating lease model and we will be starting with two aircraft and will almost immediately induct a third aircraft,” Chacko said.
Explaining the choice of Goa as a hub for the airline, Chacko shared some interesting data points about the city, which he said was the eighth-busiest air destination in India. Besides the fact that Goa is a year-round tourist destination, he highlighted other important elements that the airline considered while looking at the city as a base.
Goa’s the only place in India that has two fully-functional international airports within an hour’s driving distance — the recently-launched Mopa airport, and Dabolim airport. The city is a popular destination for meetings, conventions, exhibitions and weddings. And few airlines cater to the remote workers living in Goa that have offices in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Pune.
Chacko also mentioned that Fly91 is looking to use its network to pick up the charter traffic that comes in to Goa, which is the largest international charter destination for India.
“We want to be the last mile connectivity airline for people who may fly in on any airline — domestic or international,” he said.
In Other News
- American Airlines won’t report fourth quarter results until later this month. But based on a preview delivered last week, it needs to start planning a party. The Texas-based carrier blew its earlier forecasts out of the water, such that it now expects to report a quarterly operating margin of between 10 and 11 percent — it previously guided to between six and eight percent. Revenue was way higher than expected, and it’s no mystery why. American overlaps a lot with Southwest, whose epic holiday meltdown surely spilled hordes of weary travelers onto American’s aircraft.
- Regarding American, Chilean authorities have signed off on its investment in and commercial partnership with low-cost carrier JetSmart. Chile’s Fiscalia Nacional Economica (FNE) approved the tie up with no conditions after finding that it would not substantially reduce competition. American will take an undisclosed minority stake in JetSmart, and the two plan codeshare and loyalty program tie ups. The deal is one in a wave of consolidation among airlines in Latin America, which also includes Avianca and Gol‘s formation of Abra.
- A corrupted file in the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system is being blamed for temporarily shutting down the safety communications system last week. The FAA ordered an unusual nationwide ground stop that lasted for nearly two hours on January 11 and disrupted an estimated 11,000-plus flights over the course of the day. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said his priority was to fix the issue and added that the outage provided an “important data point, at a really important moment, to understand what we’re going to need moving forward” in reference to the upcoming FAA funding reauthorization in Congress.
- Air France-KLM priced a €1 billion ($1.1 billion) bond linked to its carbon-emission reduction targets. The debt is split between a €500 million 3.3-year tranche with a 7.25 percent coupon, and a €500 million 5.3-year tranche with an 8.125 percent coupon. Both coupons are linked to Air France-KLM’s commitment to reduce its scope 1 and 3 emissions per revenue passenger kilometer (RPK) 10 percent by 2025 from 2019 levels; if it does not meet that target, the coupons increase by at least 37.5 basis points. Proceeds will be used to partially repay the aid Air France received from the French government in 2020.
- Cyprus Airways said it carried just shy of 282,000 passengers in 2022, after moving just 78,000 a year earlier. In 2019, however, its passenger count was about 400,000. The airline is small, operating just two Airbus A320s currently. Prior to 2016, a separate government-owned entity with the same name served as the island’s flag carrier. A new private-sector investor called Charlie Airlines purchased the rights to use the Cyprus Airways brand in 2016, relaunching the airline. In 2021, it was purchased by a Malta-based company. Currently, Cyprus Airways calls itself a “hybrid airline,” soon flying to 18 destinations. Bookings are “healthy” for the remainder of this winter and “strongly picking up” for the upcoming summer tourist season, the airline said. Tourism is central to its home island’s economy but complicated by geopolitics. Cyprus has long been divided politically (one side backed by Greece and the EU and the other by Turkey). In addition, Russian travelers, a major source of Cypriot tourism in the past, are no longer coming due to EU sanctions.
- Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority issued an air operators certificate to startup airline Bonza last week. Based in Queensland, the discounter plans to operate low-frequency, point-to-point routes that target Australian leisure travelers. Bonza is backed by U.S. private equity firm 777 Partners. No word yet on when the airline will begin revenue passenger flights, which were planned to start last fall pending receipt of its certificate.
Fleet
- Airbus was again the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer in 2022. The planemaker delivered a net 661 commercial aircraft, including an impressive 516 A320neo family models, to operators last year. That compares to 480 aircraft deliveries at Boeing, which faced a number of challenges last year, including the suspension of 787 deliveries until August. Despite the strong numbers, Airbus missed its target of 700 aircraft deliveries in 2022 by almost 40 planes. Both Airbus and Boeing face supply chain and other issues boosting aircraft production rates in 2023.
- Lessor Aircastle said in its earnings call last week that it’s “seeing steady requests for lease extensions on our planes.” That’s a sign of improving demand as Asian airline markets start to recover. “The China situation,” however, is “still volatile.” The company sees supply chain issues still impacting the ability of aircraft and engine manufacturers to build and deliver planes. They’re still taking new orders though, and airlines will ultimately have to turn to lessors to meet their capacity needs, Aircastle said. “Demand exceeds supply for new narrowbody passenger aircraft.” Executives warned that industry risks remain, with many airlines still burdened by a relatively strong dollar and high fuel prices, notwithstanding recent easing. The new year “also presents the risk of recession as inflation and interest rates remain elevated.” But Aircastle adds: “Favorable travel volumes continue despite these headwinds.”
- Boeing’s 737 Max unceremoniously returned to revenue service in China last week. On January 13, China Southern Airlines operated two aircraft on two flights for the first time since 2019. The carrier operated the duo of 737-8s on a flight between Guangzhou and both Wuhan and Zhengzhou, according to FlightRadar24.
State of the Unions
American may be regretting its decision last year to unilaterally hike regional pilot pay to historically high levels, according to Raymond James analyst Savanthi Syth.
The Fort Worth, Texas-based carrier fundamentally changed the economics of regional flying when it raised pilot pay at its three wholly-owned affiliates — Envoy, Piedmont Airlines, and PSA Airlines — to nearly the level earned by its own pilots. The move doubled the cost of regional operations, which have long been a lower cost capacity option for major airlines like American to serve small cities and, at least as recently as October, had yet to solve the pilot staffing issues that American’s affiliates face.
“American made a bet last year in June, and the bet went wrong,” Syth said at the U.S. Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., last week
Rather than siphoning away the available pilots from competitors to Envoy, Piedmont, and PSA, other carriers have matched the pay rates and prompted an industry-wide shift in regional airline economics. Mesa Airlines was the first to match in August and has been followed by much of the industry, including heavyweights Horizon Air, Republic Airways, and SkyWest Airlines.
“Increases to wholly-owned pilot pay and other investments to support the operation are near-term investments that will drive long-term value,” an American spokesperson said in response to Syth’s comments. They added that the airline will continue to be “aggressive in tackling the regional pilot constraints affecting the U.S. airline industry.”
In August, American Chief Revenue Officer Vasu Raja said the airline could afford to pay affiliate pilots the new rates because its deep regional connectivity generated higher yields — in other words, fares — than competitors.
“The value we’re able to go and create, especially [with] the regional network, has less to do with the expense profile of a regional jet and really everything to do with the yield profile of being able to go and serve a ton of these really unique markets,” he said.
But competitors’ decision to match American’s affiliate pay rates has potentially left it with fewer regional pilots than hoped, and the industry with significantly higher regional costs. In October, CEO Robert Isom and other executives repeatedly cited “regional pilot constraints” as limiting the airline’s capacity recovery through 2023. This includes both hiring, and the slow process upgrading first officers to captains.
In addition, American lost partner Mesa to United in December when it declined to cover Mesa’s higher pay rates. American has gained Air Wisconsin as a partner, which itself dropped United, but that feed is with smaller, 50-seat Bombardier CRJ200s while Mesa takes larger and more profitable 76-seat Bombardier CRJ900s to United.
The industry view is that U.S. pilot staffing will normalize, both in terms of hiring and training, by 2024. Bank of America analyst Andrew Didora and others estimate that major U.S. airlines will hire roughly 22,000 pilots in 2022 and 2023. Didora estimates that the industry needs to hire roughly 5,200 pilots annually — 1,300 more than it hired annually from 2017-19 — from 2024 through the end of the decade.
Staffing numbers may be returning to pre-pandemic levels, but airlines must deal with the long-term ramifications of the new cost of regional flying set by American.
“Regional pilot pay doubling is really going to hurt communities,” Syth said. “In the smaller communities, it’s really going to have a longer term impact.”
American confirmed last week that it will end service to three small cities — Columbus, Ga., Del Rio, Texas, and Long Beach, Calif. — by April. An airline spokesperson cited the pilot shortage and weak demand for the cuts.
Delta and United have also exited markets. Chicago-based United has more aggressively cut cities with more than 30 — including ones served under the Department of Transportation’s Essential Air Service subsidy program — removed from its map. Casualties have included Evansville, Ind., Flagstaff, Ariz., Hilo, Hawaii, and Shenandoah Valley, Va.
Since the pandemic began, 14 U.S. airports have lost all scheduled passenger air service, according to data released by the Regional Airline Association (RAA) in November. Roughly 60 airports have lost half of their air service, and 161 airports a quarter.
One frequent critique pushed by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) of the U.S. pilot shortage is that it is a matter of too little pay, and not too few pilots. The argument goes that if pay increases, more people will become pilots, and lost air service will return.
The issue with that argument is, with the new industry standard pay rates, the cost of flying to small cities has risen dramatically but not every market can support a commensurate increase in airfares. Historically, as planes have grown larger and costs have risen, small cities have lost flights — even when there were enough pilots. In the 1990s, cities including Groton, Conn., Inyokern, Calif., and Naples, Fla., were served by affiliates of major airlines United and US Airways; none of these cities have scheduled air service today.
The pilot shortage — and rapidly rising costs — is driving innovation. The segment of small regional airlines, including Contour Airlines and Southern Airways Express, that fly planes with 30 seats or less has grown as the traditional regionals have pulled back from small markets. Executives at these airlines tout their models as, in the words of Southern CEO Stan Little, a form of “pilot creation” for the larger industry and a way to maintain small city air service. Even the largest U.S. regional, SkyWest, has proposed to create its own such airline, SkyWest Charter. However, some pilots at these small airlines have said they face long hours amid ambitious growth plans and slower-than-expected hiring.
Contour CEO Matt Chaifetz went as far as to suggest small communities create their own funding sources, in other words a local version of the national EAS program, to subsidize air service. “With labor rates, and fuel where it is, a lot of these markets are going to need continuous subsidy if they want to retain service,” he said in August.
Another option is ground transportation. Bus operator Landline has pushed its bus-as-a-flight option to airlines — and air travelers — since debuting with Sun Country in 2019. It now partners with American and United, as well as Sun Country, at four major hubs across the U.S.
“If we can find a way forward with the government on [EAS], with communities, it’s a way to lower the cost to the government and probably provide a better service experience for these communities,” Landline Vice President of Regulatory and Corporate Development Howard Kass said at TRB. Small communities “are in a downward cycle as it relates to air service because of the stress on the regional industry,” he added.
The DOT allows a bus operator like Landline to apply for EAS contracts under an alternative service program. However, communities are disinclined to support such proposals because government funding for airports is based solely on the number of passengers that board a plane, and not a bus.
Labor Briefs
- Pilots at Spirit Airlines ratified a new two-year accord last week with 69 percent of crew members voting in favor. Ratification came within weeks of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) and Spirit reaching an agreement-in-principal in early December. The union said the deal represents a 27 percent economic gain, or worth roughly $463 million, over two years for Spirit pilots.
Landing Strip
- Spanish airport operator Aena handled nearly 243 million passengers last year, or 88.5 percent of 2019 levels, it reported last week. Notably, passenger numbers through its 46 airports in December were at 98 percent of three years earlier. Madrid Barajas, Aena’s largest airport and a major hub for Iberia, saw 50.6 million passengers, while Barcelona El Prat saw 41.6 million in 2022.
- The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey opened the $2.7 billion Terminal A at Newark Liberty airport on January 12. The ceremonial first arrival was a United flight, while Air Canada, American, and JetBlue all began using the facility the same day. The opening was planned for December but delayed a month to avoid opening over the busy holiday travel period. Terminal A is the latest in a multi-billion capital program to upgrade New York City’s airports; new terminals have opened at LaGuardia in recent years, and work is underway on a major overhaul to the terminals at JFK.
Feature Story
Q&A With Air New Zealand CEO Greg Foran
Greg Foran was dealt no easy task when he took the helm of Air New Zealand on February 3, 2020. New Zealand confirmed its first case of Covid-19 the same month, and closed its borders to all but citizens by March 19. A national lockdown began days later.
Fast forward three years and the situation is dramatically different. Air New Zealand is back to operating about 75 percent of its pre-pandemic capacity, and sees strong travel demand as people reconnect and eagerly hop on a plane after lengthy lockdowns. The airline recently raising its pre-tax profit forecast for the six months ending in December by as much as NZ$95 million ($61 million) to NZ$295-325 million.
Foran, a former Walmart executive in the U.S., recently spoke with Edward Russell about Air New Zealand’s outlook and plans, including for a zero-emissions aircraft demonstrator that could be carrying passengers in just three years. The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Airline Weekly: The year-end holiday travel period just wrapped up, how was it for Air New Zealand?
Greg Foran: I’ve spent a bit of time out and around the network, on planes, at airports and baggage, and all the other things. There’s no doubt that customers are very keen to get out and travel. New Zealand was locked down for quite a period of time, so this is really the first Christmas in three years that people have been able to get out and reconnect in a much easier fashion. We’ve rebounded strongly and there’s been no difference between the strengths, whether it’s domestic or what we call mid-haul — over to Australia or the Pacific Islands — or long-haul. Customers are out in numbers and they’re very keen to travel.
AW: No operational disruptions?
GF: Look, I wouldn’t say there’s been no issues. I think it’s a credit to our customers and our staff that we’ve been able to get through in a reasonable fashion. But, I wouldn’t say that we’re operating like a Swiss watch by any means. We are not quite as smooth and seamless as we’d like to be, but I think everyone has appreciated that, when an industry has gone through the type of events that we have, it takes a while to build the muscle back. We’ve employed basically 2,500 people since we knew we were reopening. Getting those people trained, and up and running has been a lot of work. We’re through the main hump, if you like, of the travel season.
AW: And no staffing issues?
GF: We’ve still got more to go. We’ve got about another 400 people that we’re looking for at the moment. I would say that it continues, like in many industries, to still be a bit challenging to get people, particularly across areas such as airports. We’re not too bad in terms of pilots. We’ve done a pretty good job with cabin crew.
AW: How does 2023 look for Air New Zealand?
GF: It’s a very interesting period for us at this point. There’s no doubt we are still experiencing pent-up demand. How long that runs is a little bit of an unknown at the moment but, at this stage, it’s holding up well. I think, like many countries, we’re expecting to see some impact around disposable income as inflation bites. We’re adopting an approach that says, “We’ll be sensibly optimistic about how we see things go, but let’s be sensible about that optimism, because in reality, there will be some more capacity come back as people start to get spooled up a bit.” At the same time, there may well be some economic factors that may see a bit of a downturn.
AW: Speaking of capacity, what does the new year look like?
GF: We’ve got a business which is now running at 100 percent domestically, and we are looking to increase that. We’ve been able to put on A321neos that have about an extra 40-plus seats. That’s going to give us more capacity domestically, which we think is good. We are running at about 85 percent across the Tasman at the moment versus pre-Covid, but we’re looking to get that number up. That’s going to take us a bit of time, but hopefully by the middle of this year we’d expect to be getting that back closer to about 100 percent pre-Covid. Then international at the moment’s running at about 75 percent. We’ve got all the ports open that we want to have open. We got New York open, and loads there are pretty full. At this stage, that’s running about where we would expect.
AW: Any concerns with new competition coming into Auckland?
GF: Yeah, not particularly. I’ve been out at the airport a lot, so I’ve been watching that American plane come in from Dallas-Fort Worth. And there’s a likelihood that Delta will come in out of Los Angeles at some point; they’ve certainly mentioned that. Qantas is looking to route through Auckland to New York mid-July. We’re expecting that. We’re used to competition. It’s our home base. We’ll protect that and do what we need to, but I think it’s fair to say that we will see some new entrants come in. It will be also interesting to see how China plays out.
AW: Speaking of China, the country just recently dropped entry restrictions. How is that performing?
GF: At the moment, the passenger flights are full and we are looking to open Shanghai up from two- to three-times a week to maybe five-, six-, or seven-times a week. But we’ve kept that cadence of flying going right through the pandemic. In fact, when our plane went in there a few days ago we were the first foreign carrier to land. We didn’t plan it that way. It’s just that we were on time and a few of the other airlines were a bit late getting in so, I think, we were literally the first foreign airline with passengers not having to do quarantine to land in Shanghai.
AW: Switching gears, Air New Zealand recently launched a zero-emissions aircraft demonstrator project. Tell us more about that.
GF: We’ve got some pretty clear goals to hit and that is, first of all, to get about a 19 percent reduction in absolute carbon emissions by 2030 off a baseline of 2019. Then, like many airlines, we have a goal by 2050 to be net zero. It’s fair to say that technology is still going to have to come along and, if you like, provide the glue to ensure that we hit those goals. But, as we think about 2030, which is obviously a lot closer, we know that we need to come up with an alternative to our Dash 8-Q300 fleet. We’re looking at an electric, hydrogen electric, green hydrogen electric, or a hybrid aircraft to replace that fleet around 2030. What we’ve done is scoured the world, [and] we’ve identified, at this stage, four people that we want to go forward with in a meaningful way so that, by 2026, we’re actually running a commercial demonstrator. In other words, we’ve bought a couple of planes and we’re flying them between Auckland and Whangārei, or Auckland and Tauranga, and customers are sitting on these planes.
AW: And what about emissions from longhaul flying, which you’ve previously said are Air New Zealand’s largest source of carbon emissions?
GF: Longhaul is the big contributor. If we don’t address longhaul, then there’s 50 percent of our carbon emissions sitting there on the table. The solution there at this point needs to be sustainable aviation fuel. Our objective this financial year was to get at least 1 percent of our fuel purchases to be SAF. We’ve been able to get a delivery out of Neste from Finland routed through Singapore and down but we’ve still got more to go to get to that 1 percent.
We are in the middle of working with both private and public companies, including the government, to consider whether it is viable to build a SAF plant here in New Zealand. Could that plant be woody biomass, or would it need to be household waste? We’re in the process of completing that study with a view that, sometime this year, we should be able to assess if it is viable to stand up a plant here that we would then put capital into and build, or do we need to consider alternatives such as purchasing SAF from overseas ports, or some other type of joint venture arrangement with another country? There is no doubt that the largest portion of carbon emissions reduction is going to be SAF.
AW: On fleet, what is the status of Air New Zealand’s Boeing 787 order?
GF: We absolutely are keen on getting that order. We took the opportunity during Covid to retire eight Boeing 777-200s. They were starting to get towards the end of life. We need these next eight 787s. We haven’t made a decision as to whether they’re -9s or -10s. Certainly some of them are going to be -9s. They will be, if you like, mission-specific for ultra long-haul flights. Think Houston, Chicago, New York. As to whether or not we then put some -10s in, we haven’t made that decision, and those planes will also help, in time, to replace the 777-300s, which will be starting to get nearer the end of their life.
AW: Any other fleet segments you’re looking at for orders or replacement?
GF: We like the A321s. They’re incredibly efficient. We are having a look at what we might want to use in terms of something that could be of an international configuration. We can see some opportunities with the Pacific Islands and the Tasman. Then, of course, we’ve been progressively, over the years, increasing our fleet of the turboprops with the ATR 72-600s, and we’re having a think at the moment whether we don’t grab a few more of those.
By the Numbers

Source: Fleets Analyzer by Cirium