FLY91 Orders 40 ATR 72-600s in a $1 Billion Bet on India’s Smaller Cities

India’s FLY91 signed a firm order on September 3, 2026, for 40 ATR 72-600 turboprops worth roughly $1 billion. It is the largest order ATR has booked in nearly a decade, and the biggest any regional airline has ever placed with the manufacturer.

From Six Aircraft to Sixty

FLY91 currently flies six ATR 72-600s, and the new order will be delivered between 2027 and 2032, according to Aviation Week. The airline plans to grow its fleet to around 60 aircraft within five years.

Founded less than three years ago and based in Goa, FLY91 has since flown more than 15,000 flights to a dozen destinations, running close to 280 flights a week, Aviation Week reported. “This order is the catalyst for our next phase of expansion,” said founder and chief executive Manoj Chacko, according to AviTrader.

The relationship between the two companies predates this order by two years. FLY91 first signed a pay-by-the-hour maintenance agreement with ATR in 2024 covering two aircraft, then expanded it to an eight-year global maintenance deal in January 2026 as its fleet grew to four.

As a bridge to the new jets arriving from 2027, FLY91 also plans to lease six to eight additional ATR 72-600s, Air Data News reported, pushing its fleet toward 12 to 14 aircraft before the firm order deliveries begin.

Betting on India’s Underserved Routes

FLY91 operates under India’s UDAN regional connectivity scheme, which subsidizes routes to smaller cities that larger carriers skip. Roughly 98 of its weekly flights receive government viability-gap funding, according to Air Data News.

“This expansion aligns closely with the Indian government’s ambition to strengthen regional connectivity through UDAN, bringing affordable and reliable air transport to underserved communities,” said ATR chief executive Nathalie Tarnaud Laude, according to Aviation Week.

Air travel makes up only about 3 percent of India’s roughly 4.6 billion annual intercity journeys, Air Data News reported, a gap that regional carriers and turboprops like the 72-seat ATR are built to close on shorter, thinner routes that jets cannot serve economically.

The ATR 72-600 burns less fuel per seat than a regional jet of similar size and can operate from the shorter runways common at smaller Indian airports. That combination is why turboprops, not regional jets, are the aircraft of choice for the smaller cities FLY91 serves under UDAN, like Sindhudurg, Jalgaon, and Nanded.