Originally Posted by
blastoff
I haven't heard of such a ratio. Perhaps one has been used at the Legacy carrier level since equipment determines "Career Expectations" financially. XJT's 50 seat pay rates are very close to some airlines' 70 seat rates, I don't think our "Career Expectations" are any different whether we fly 37, 50, or 70 seats. XJT operated for (and was owned by) Continental which didn't allow jets bigger than 50 seats, and even restricted the flying XJT could do for other airlines. Don't see where that would be a player in SLI. Yes the ERJ's and older CRJ's are coming up on the end of their useful life. There's been much discussion particularly on SKYW Inc Earnings calls about fleet renewal.
And the fact that no one is MAKING 50-seat RJ's anymore. At some point the airframes are going to time out or become so mx-cost prohibitive that they are not worth flying.
I mean, I guess if you went to Embraer or Canadair with a suitcase containing $4 billion in cash and demanded 200 new ERJ-145s or CRJ-200's, they would fire up the assembly lines again, but I don't think either company plans on making anything other than "large" RJ's for the immediate future.
So there will be a tipping point where regardless of all the contract talk, the 50-seaters are going to have to start to retire. Some are still young by airplane standards, but they get so many more cycles than larger aircraft you'd think they'd have to time out faster.