Originally Posted by
freezingflyboy
So naive you are in the ways of the airlines, young padawan. If I could answer that question for you then I wouldn't be working, that's for sure. But I can speculate and talk out of my butt with the best of 'em so here goes...
Despite what you may have heard, the rumors of the death of the 50-seater have been greatly exaggerated. They were over-deployed when oil was cheap and the economy was good and we are just on the backside of the "50 seat bubble", if you want to call it that. They still have a role, though that role is diminishing somewhat (right sizing is more accurate). But I am reasonably confident that the 50 seat jet won't disappear entirely in my lifetime.
You make good points. I've been wondering how many cycles the 50 seat airframes are good for? Obviously they fly many more cycles than larger jets, even if they don't get high enough to fly at max diff all the time. I just wonder when the airframes themselves will start to time out. I mean, if no one is making them anymore and at some point they are just not safe/legal (or are too expensive to continuously check) to fly, what then?