Times Online, 14 April 2008

With oil prices hovering at close to $110 a barrel, many are betting that new technologies — biofuels, hydrogen cells and solar power among them — will solve the world's energy crisis. A large part of the airline industry, however, is looking back to basics: planes with propellers.

In the market for passenger planes with fewer than 70 seats, turboprop aircraft, once condemned for the relatively noisy and bumpy ride passengers endure, are now outselling the equivalent regional jets by two-to-one, according to industry estimates.

"Propeller-driven craft enjoy massive fuel benefits on shorter journeys," Kapil Kaul, the chief executive of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, said.

For a journey of less than about 600 nautical miles, or about 90 minutes' flying time, a turboprob may use as much as 70 per cent less fuel than a similar-sized jet, he added.

Higher oil prices have driven aviation fuel prices up more than 60 per cent in the past year and mean that fuel costs now account for about a third of airline's running costs, compared to as little as 15 per cent before. The impact that the cost of crude is having on airline profits has helped to lift turboprop sales to about 400 last year, compared with about 250 jets in the same size bracket.

An explosive growth of domestic routes in India and China — most involving relatively short hops between "tier two" cities, the type of journeys where turboprops deliver the greatest savings — is also boosting demand. Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways, two of India's leading domestic players, are among the world's leading owners of turbprops and say they intend to buy more.

One of the main beneficiaries has been ATR, a joint venture between EADS, the European aeroengineering giant, and Alenia Aeronautica, which is enjoying a sales boom as its products move back into vogue.

From 2002 to 2004, ATR sold between 15 and 20 aircraft in the 50 to 70 seat size a year. Last year it sold 113, about half of them in Asia, where its planes are suited to the region's less developed airports. With American carriers now expected to phase out some of their fuel-thirsty regional jets, ATR expects sales to remain strong and predicts that another 1,400 turboprops will go into service over the next ten years.

John Moore, of ATR, said: "There's nothing on the horizon in terms of technology that looks like it will beat a turboprop in terms of efficiency in the near term. And we've made them more comfortable for passengers."

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article3745007.ece