ATR 72 ATR 72-201

The -201 repeats the airframe and doors of the -101 — front and rear passenger doors — with a higher maximum take-off weight, and with it the 200 series became the original production version of the ATR 72 as the market knew it. It keeps the two 2,400 shp PW124B engines with four-bladed propellers and was certified in September 1989, alongside the -101 it derives from.

Its reference figures are 27.17 m long, 27.05 m in span, 7.65 m high, 12,400 kg empty, 22,000 kg maximum take-off weight, 515 km/h high-speed cruise, a 7,600 m ceiling and a range of 862 nautical miles (1,596 km) with a full load, in a 66-seat cabin at 31-inch pitch. Maximum payload is 7,000 kg and maximum fuel 5,000 kg.

The -201 and its cargo-door twin, the -202, covered the first half of the 1990s until the PW127 engines of the 210 series improved performance at hot and high airports. ATR counted 187 early-version aircraft produced as of September 2018. One of those -202s, airframe 098, would later be rebuilt as the ATR 72-600 prototype.