Originally Posted by
727flteng
Not sure I believe this at all. My last 4 late flights into EWR all had a TOTAL of 7 pax. Granted I'm on a 50 seater not 160, but they still pay for the plane whether it's full or not. If they were worried about light loads, they would leave these planes at the outstations instead of bringing them back to the hub empty, or almost empty.
The problem with the thinking here is a regional is paid by how many people are on the aircraft. They are paid per departure. If that aircraft departures on its scheduled flight mainline pays the regional the same amount wether its full or has 1 person on it.
When mainline does the flight more thinking goes into it.