Originally Posted by gloopy

Frequency is only one of many factors. Back when fuel was almost free and high rolling dot commers were dropping a grand or two on last minute walk ups for every regional market under the sun, majors simply had to have a lot of 50 seaters to compete with...all the other majors with 50 seaters. The RJ was a superb hub raider back in its day and you had to have them simply because everyone else had them. Every major except SWA, which was a lot less hub and spoke, simply had to have hourly flights to every small and medium sized city to their hub and in many cases other major's hubs or else the high rollers would switch brands. The rabble in coach was just along for the ride but collectively their total revenue was also worth chasing. So we saw every major airline except SWA barf RJ's into the air limited only by the factory production line.

Those days are long over. Fuel is way up and staying up, the industry is radically consolidated compared to the RJ heyday and 50's are being culled as fast as the totality of their economic circumstances can permit (contracts, leases, heavy checks/TBO's, etc). DL no longer needs the RJ's that it needed to fend off the RJ's from NWA and vice versa. Ditto for UAL vs CAL, DAL vs UAL and CAL, NWA vs UAL and CAL, etc. Even if the days of free gas and 2grand walk up high rollers returned (which they never will) consolidation alone means that the need for the "hub raider" has been permantly and severely reduced. And we're not done consolidating yet. USAir? AA? SWA? JB? While "70 is the new 50" the 70's of today aren't growing nearly as fast as the 50's of yesterday. Will there always be "some" 50's? Sure. But what is that "some"? hundreds and hundreds for each airline system? Nope, not once this all shakes out, and despite the mass culling, we are not yet done seeing RJ's being parked. Not even close.

So is that magical 20 seat addition enough to revive the "RJ Revolution"? Nope, not even close. Even the tragic 76 seat limit is close to peaking in the DL system and presently not allowed in the UAL/CAL or AA systems. There is some room for unrestricted 90 seaters at Air Tran and USAir, but the AT openings will likely be eliminated by SWA before they arrive.

There will always be "some" RJ's in the 50 seat range. But a decade from now it will be a whisper compared to the scream of 10 years ago or even the annoyingly loud talking of today. There will be 70's and 76's as well, but again their growth is tapping out as we speak not including the systems that don't curretly have them (because they are not currently permitted) and if they need more than what is allowed, the mainline pilot groups can fly them.