Originally Posted by
NVUS
Completely false
Let's just say, for the sake of arguments, the aircraft are paid for. Operational cost are around $500/block hour (that's a very high cost, again for sake of arguments) and fuel costs of approximately $500 an hour as well (1,000lbs, $3.50gal). $1,000/block hr divided by 25 PAX is $40 per person, per hour, to break even. Then consider the amount of subsidies those small commuties pay, or EAS contract payments, it would be hard to see SkyWest losing money on these routes.
Originally Posted by
M20EPilot
Just curious if your $1K/block figure is missing anything? The recent EAS bids that skywest put in (e.g. for VEL) stated the bro was more like 1600/hr (I can't remember, exactly) to operate. Still pretty cheap considering you can haul close to 30 folks.
Guys the current E-120 cost is $20-$22 per minute, that's around $1200-$1320 an hr.
As far as the E-120 flying, they’ve been saying SLC will be reduced and close for the better part of a decade but yet it remains. We have flying out of there that the RJ can’t do and as long as those cities cover our loses, we will continue to go there. In other words, we’re not losing money we’re just not making as much as they’d like. Which means over time as they start having real issues filling seats they might dump the E120 flying in order to be able to staff their jets.