The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has just granted ATR, the European manufacturer of turboprop aircraft, certification to operate its new ATR 42-600 and ATR 72-600 in temperatures as low as -45°C at take-off and landing. This certification means that ‘-600’ series ATRs can now fly with other ATR versions already certified to operate in particularly cold environments such as the far north of Europe, Canada and Siberia.

As part of this certification process, the EASA certified new ATR ‘-600’ equipment and systems – installed on their new avionics suite -, which had already been designed by ATR suppliers taking into consideration their future use in extremely low-temperature environments.

Since their launch at the end of 2007, new ‘-600’ series ATR aircraft have been positioned as the top selling regional aircraft with less than 90 seats worldwide. ATR has to date received more than 300 orders for this new family of aircraft.