Air Transport

^{Mary Kirby in Dallas & Darren Shannon in Washington, DC}

Carrier seeks bids for 24 new 70-seaters to serve New York Newark and Houston hubs

There were the strongest signs yet of a revival of the turboprop in the USA at the Regional Airline Association’s (RAA) annual conference in Dallas, Texas last week, when it emerged that Continental Airlines has issued a request for proposals (RFP) for 24 new 70-seat turboprops.

According to industry sources, the airline’s RFP specifies that 12 turboprops will operate from Continental’s New York Newark hub and an equal number from the carrier’s Houston hub. Both airports will lose capacity under a new feeder deal with its regional associate ExpressJet, which has to take 69 Embraer ERJ-145s out of its current 274-strong regional jet fleet.

The turboprop RFP, which the airline says is just one of several options “for our future regional flying needs”, marks the first serious interest in new-build large turboprops since the 1990s from a US legacy carrier.

Continental was among the pioneers in the USA of an effort to move to an all-jet regional fleet, phasing out its ATR and Embraer turboprops in favour of ERJ-145s. However, more recently the airline has begun to re-introduce some turboprop feeder services through contracts with Colgan Air, Gulfstream International and Regions Air.

ATR and Bombardier – the two producers of 70-seat turboprops in the form of the ATR 72-500 and Dash 8 Q400, respectively – are said to be excited about the potential prospects of the RFP. Both have been waiting and hoping for a revival of the turboprop market in the USA.