Aircraft

Italian ATR shareholder Alenia is playing down suggestions that the United Arab Emirates could become involved in production work on the regional turboprop.

It follows comments from the Italian ambassador to the UAE, Paolo Dionisi, who is cited in Gulf News as saying that Italy is in negotiations with the Abu Dhabi-based maintenance company Gulf Aircraft Maintenance (Gamco) to "jointly produce" the ATR line in Abu Dhabi.

“We believe the industrial capability in the UAE is mature enough as there are aircraft assembly operations and there are even some parts that are made here for Airbus,” he says.

Gamco could not be reached for clarification and the nature of any possible UAE involvement in ATR remains unclear.

But neither Alenia – which jointly owns ATR with EADS – nor the turboprop manufacturer appeared aware of any such talks, and would not comment further