With oil prices hovering at close to $110 a barrel, many are betting that new technologies – biofuels, hydrogen cells and solar power among them – will solve the world’s energy crisis.

A large part of the airline industry, however, is harking back to basics: old-fashioned aircraft with propellers.

In the market for passenger craft with fewer than 70 seats, turboprops – once condemned for noisy, bumpy rides – are outselling the equivalent regional jets by two to one.

“Propeller-driven planes achieve massive fuel benefits on shorter journeys,” Kapil Kaul, of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, said.

For a trip of less than 600 nautical miles, or about 90 minutes’ flying time, a turboprob may use as much as 70 per cent less fuel than a similar-sized jet, he said.

According to Treehugger, the environmentalist website, travelling on an aircraft such as a Bombardier Q400, one of the most advanced turboprops, can be more environmentally friendly than going by car (but not quite as green as taking a train).

Flybe, the British airline with a fleet of Q400s, makes a similar point in its marketing.

Indeed, there are suggestions that private jets are now passé and that turboprops are the chic way to travel.

Porter Air, the achingly hip Canadian carrier, flies Q400s between Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. The aircrafts’ interiors are designed by Winkreative, the agency set up by Tyler Brûlé, the founder of Wallpaper magazine.

Environmental and fashion concerns overlap with business imperatives. Rising oil prices have driven aviation fuel prices up more than 60 per cent in the past year and mean that fuel costs account for a third of airlines’ running costs, compared with as little as 15 per cent before.

The impact on airline profits has helped to lift turboprop sales to about 400 last year, against about 250 jets in the same size bracket.

Prices for popular used turboprops fell by a quarter between 2001 and 2004, according to Vref, the industry’s standard value guide, weighed on by the 9/11 downturn and the emergence of a new generation of lower-cost business jets. Now they are back at their peak.

The TBM 700, recommended as the best “used personal turboprop” by Flying magazine, was first sold in 1991 and cost just under $1.3 million new. Today, those oldest models sell secondhand for just under $1.3 million (£650,000).

Flying said: “Turboprops have been counted out several times in the past and have always bounced back, but it’s hard to remember a time when the reversal in value and demand has happened so quickly.”

Rapid growth of domestic routes in India and China, most involving relatively short hops between “tier two” cities, the type of journeys on which turboprops deliver the greatest savings, has also boosted demand. Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways, two of India’s leading domestic players, are among the world’s leading owners of turboprop aircraft and both say that they will buy more.

One of the main beneficiaries has been ATR, a joint venture between EADS, the European aerospace giant, and Alenia Aeronautica, which is enjoying a sales boom as its products move back into vogue.

From 2002 to 2004, ATR sold between 15 and 20 aircraft in the 50-seat to 70-seat size each year. Last year it sold 113, about half of them in Asia, where its aircraft are also suited to the region’s less developed airports and shorter runways.

With American carriers expected to phase out some of their fuel-thirsty regional jets early, ATR expects sales to stay strong and predicts that another 1,400 turboprops will go into service over the next ten years.

John Moore, of ATR, said: “There’s nothing on the horizon in terms of technology that looks like it will beat a turboprop in terms of efficiency in the near term. And we’ve made them more comfortable for passengers.”

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