Originally Posted by
tibbs87
True, they ceased main production of the aircraft in 2001, but they do build new Brasilia's on request, as the Angolan Air Force received newly built EMB 120s in 2007.
Why would you go from 34 seat Saab 340s to 28 seat Embraer 120s? Despite them being availble as built to order, apparently nobody in the past 17 years has ordered any. Must be for some reason.
The 30seater market simply is a non-starter and even the 50seat market is struggling, given the small number of orders for the only available 50 seater turborprop. The ATR42 more or less has become a niche application for those who cannot make use of ATR72s on short runways (like in the Bahamas, the Caribbean etc.) I understand that the operating costs for both ATRs are more or less the same so it appears to be a non-brainer to have an additional 25 seats to toy around with if acquisition costs for ATR72 are not much higher than for ATR42s.