Originally Posted by
imlars
My observation is that the erj is/was a quick turbo prop conversion designed for a relatively short life span. At one point I recall a 20000 hour airframe limit. This has gone up as it has performed somewhat better and longer than designed. I don't think Embraer had two to three hour stage lengths in mind 12 years ago. That has saved a ton of cycles on the airframe. They still seem tired to me. The reliability of the older half of the fleet seems less to me. Twenty years for an airliner is a long time. Twenty years on a regional airliner is a very long time. Life limited parts, finishing parts, dispatch reliability all figure into operating costs. I dont claim to be an airline economist, but I surmise that at one point the cost of operating an older airframe crosses the line into a need to acquire new equipment due to pure economics. Eagle launched EMB 600 and 601 in May of 1998 in ORD, (I had a piece of cake and punch, there was some balloons too!) I believe both are back from TSA sabbatical putting them at 14 years this May. Time flies. I keep my opinion they are old. Albeit, some older then others.
You are correct, they are an older airplane and there is a variety of factors that comes into account when deciding to replace these airplanes. They are old by industry standards and there are more economical options out there the limiting factor is SCOPE in this case. But look at the 1900 that Gulfstream (now silver) and Great Lakes fly, these airplanes are old with high cycles but there isn't a better replacement for the type of operations they do!