Aeromar has ordered two ATR 72-600 aircraft with deliveries in 2013, say executives at the ALTA Airline Leaders Forum 2012 in Panama City.

The Mexico City-based carrier will take delivery of the 68-seat turboprops in April and May 2013, says Fabricio Cojuc Wolfowitz, vice-president of network planning and corporate development at Aeromar, on the sidelines of the forum.

The aircraft will replace the smaller and older ATR 42-300 turboprops in its fleet at about a rate of two for one, he says.

The list price for the ATR 72-600 is about $23 million.

Aeromar has four ATR 42-300s, 10 ATR 42-500s and two Bombardier CRJ200s in its fleet, according to Flightglobal's Ascend Online database.

The airline acquired the two CRJ200s from Jazz Aviation earlier this year but plans to have at least six of the type in its fleet by year-end were scuppered by a lack of availability. "There was a big spurt of demand for those planes and we were really unable to trace down planes that were in a condition that was up to our standards," says Wolfowitz.

He says that Aeromar was looking for relatively "low hours and low cycles" CRJs on the used market.

ATR has outstanding orders for 198 ATR 72-600s, according to Ascend.

Source: Air Transport Intelligence news