Air Antilles Express Signs MoU for 2 ATR 42-500s

Released on Thursday, June 21, 2007

On the occasion of the Paris Air Show, ATR and Pointe-à-Pitre-based Air Antilles Express signed today a MoU for the purchase of 2 new ATR 42-500s. The total value of the contract is US $ 30 million. Stéphane Mayer, who succeeded Filippo Bagnato as ATR CEO on 1st June, and Christian Marchand, Air Antilles Express CEO inked the deal at Le Bourget.

Both aircraft will be configured with 48 seats and equipped with the "Elegance Cabin" and the newest technological innovations in passenger comfort, communications and navigation aid tools. The first will be delivered in 2008 and the second will follow in 2009.

With these 2 ATR 42-500s, the airline will replace their two existing ATR 42s in order to standardize the fleet on the latest generation aicraft with improved comfort and performance and thus face the growing demand of their inter-islands network.

Commenting on the announcement, Christian Marchand declared: "We are very satisfied with the service given by our first two ATR 42s. We decided that now is the right time to move forward with these two brand new last-generation aircraft in order to offer to our passengers the highest standard available today. ATR and Air Antilles Express have a long an successful partnership and we are convinced that we will continue to work together as partners to meet our needs and achieve our goals to make our airline one of the main operators in the Caribbean region".

Stéphane Mayer underlined that "the confidence of our customers in the ATR family of aircraft is a key factor of ATR's success. Air Antilles Express is electing to expand its fleet with our environment-friendly aircraft and we appreciate their faith in our product. The �500 series ATRs are well adapted to this type of interisland operations. The reliability and the high maintainability level of the ATR aicraft will enable the airline to optimize the frequencies of their connections within the islands".

Since the beginning of the year, ATR has received orders for 53 new aircraft, some of them not yet unveiled. Since the beginning of the programme, ATR has sold 890 aircraft (416 ATR 42s and 474 ATR 72s) and has delivered 727 (393 ATR 42s and 334 ATR 72s), thus posting a current backlog of 163 aircraft.