Nordic Aviation Capital and Akkodis have announced that they have signed an agreement for five freighter conversion kits for the ATR 72-600, with the first deliveries starting from the early months of 2023. The aircraft for conversion will come from Nordic’s existing ATR fleet. The ATR 72-600 conversion kits have the flexibility to be converted back to ATR 72-500 conversion kits, and thus are suitable for application across Nordic’s entire fleet of ATR 72s.
Akkodis holds an STC (Supplemental Type Certificate) for cargo conversion on ATR legacy aircraft, with more than 70 converted aircraft flying around the world, each offering 75.5m3 of cargo volume and carrying over 8 tons of freight. The integration of the freighter modification onto the ATR-600’s New Avionic Suite (NAS) presented a challenge. Nevertheless, Akkodis engineering experts identified a solution to enable them to extend the certification to the next generation of ATR aircraft.
Commenting on the deal, the President & CEO of Nordic Aviation Capital, Norman C.T. Liu said “We are pleased to expand our existing relationship with Akkodis with a launch order for the ATR 72-600 passenger to freighter conversion program. Nordic aims to remain the leader in regional aviation and expand into larger narrowbody aircraft while building our full life cycle asset management capabilities.”
Also commenting was Francesco Aucelli from Akkodis who said, “The ATR 72-600’s modern glass cockpit will be very attractive to freighter operators, as it features the very latest avionics with performance-based navigation capabilities. Despite the technical challenge of the NAS integration, the ATR-600 freighter configuration provides new opportunities for cargo operations and we are thrilled to support NAC and the industry in such a way.”
July has been a busy month for the staff at Nordic, following the completion of deals with Olympic and LOT Nordic has also announced a lease agreement for three Embraer E195 aircraft with Johannesburg based Airlink. A lease of one ATR 72-500F to Loganair was also completed during the month. In addition to the aircraft leases, Nordic has announced a lease agreement for six CF34-10E engines with the German company MTU MLS for their rental pool.
