Originally Posted by kfahmi

I think this discussion is missing something that's very important to mainline: customer demand for frequent flights each day.

When Joe Q. Public (or, more accurately, Ernie the Executive) goes on Expedia or Kayak to look for flights from Rapid City, SD to Frankfurt, Germany, and he sees the following options:

Airline 1: Major airline departure (one per day, using B737/A320 type of equipment) at 0600 hrs to ORD, with a 10-hour layover to connect to the ORD-Frankfurt overnight. Ernie's got to get up at 0300 to make that flight, and sit for 10 hours twiddling his thumbs in ORD.

Airline 2: Regional airline departure (5 per day, using EMB-145s/CRJ-200s/Q400s/ etc), allowing Ernie to work nearly a full day, then hop a late-afternoon flight and spend just a 90-minute layover in ORD before catching that UA 747 to Frankfurt.

Which option do you think Ernie is going to take? Sure, people like to grouse about flying on 'small airplanes' such as a -200 or a -145, but they'll choose the airline with the lowest cost and the most convenient flight times. And the only way to offer that is by offering multiple RJ/turboprop departures per day vs. one 737/A320 departure per day.

The majors have outsourced a huge amount of flying for a reason. Cost is one reason, but frequency of departures is a huge influence on customer demand. I've spent many years working in a (non-aviation) career field that demands frequent travel, and let me tell you, none of my colleagues give a rat's patootie what equipment is serving the route. All they want to know is, "What's the quickest way I can get from City A to City B?" The airline that offers the fastest connection nearly always gets the business (assuming that the price differential is not too extreme.)