ST JOHN'S–Fi­nan­cial­ly strapped re­gion­al air­line LI­AT an­nounced it had tak­en pos­ses­sion of an ATR 72-600 air­craft as it up­grades its ag­ing fleet.

The air­line said the French-man­u­fac­tured ATR is be­ing leased from the lessor GECAS (GE Cap­i­tal Avi­a­tion Ser­vices) and "is the first of a to­tal of eight ATRs -four 68-seat ATR 72-600 and four 48-seat ATR 42-600s- that will be in­tro­duced in­to LI­AT's fleet.

"The in­tro­duc­tion of these brand new ATR-600s in LI­AT's cur­rent fleet of 14 air­craft is a part of the air­line's re­struc­tur­ing plans aim­ing at fleet mod­erni­sa­tion and net­work im­prove­ments," the air­line said in a state­ment.

"The air­line will sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce op­er­at­ing and main­te­nance costs, gain fur­ther in prof­itabil­i­ty and of­fer more com­fort to its pas­sen­gers due to its en­hanced seats de­sign."

At the mo­ment, the An­tigua-based car­ri­er has a fleet of 18 Dash-8 air­craft, with 15 that have a seat­ing ca­pac­i­ty of 50 and three 37-seater planes.

LI­AT, which flies to 21 des­ti­na­tions in the Caribbean, has put a price tag of US$100 mil­lion on the re-fleet­ing ex­er­cise and said it is seek­ing to bor­row be­tween US$60 and US$70 mil­lion from the Bar­ba­dos-based Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB).

The An­tigua-based air­line last De­cem­ber un­veiled a new busi­ness plan it said would help re­verse an EC$43 mil­lion loss in 2011 while pro­ject­ing a two per cent prof­it in 2013. (CMC)

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