Originally Posted by
FlyingSlowly
There will always be a market for efficient aircraft in all seat categories. The E2 in all flavors fills that need.
The next 25 years will not be quite like the past...and Delta, AAL, and UAL do not have a global monopoly on air transport.
They have a monopoly on US hub-and-spoke, which is a very large market, I think larger than any other single global market niche.
For much the rest of the world, most airline flying is not a routine thing so customers don't care about frequency. One A380 per week is just fine, since it's cheaper per seat than say five daily NB/RJ flights, seven days/week.
Originally Posted by
FlyingSlowly
Foreign carriers operate on different models, as do the LCCs.
The ones that have the kind of density that supports high-frequency RJ flying also tend to have a lot of high-speed rail (Japan & Western Europe).
Originally Posted by
FlyingSlowly
Besides, if large "regional jets" (kind of ironic, compared to the PAX capacity of early 737s) really are that great at saving $$$$, then the majors might just have to swallow their pride and operate them directly.
They're not great at saving money, what they do is provide frequency which is important to the kind of habitual flyers we have in the US market. If operated by mainline, they would mostly lose money.
In the past operating RJ's at a loss was accepted and justified as feed for mainline hubs. Lately majors prefer that almost all of their flying turn a profit, but the pendulum could swing back.
But if the pilot shortage is real, then the other possible paradigm change would be reduced frequency, operating NB's on former RJ routes just not as often. PAX would not be happy if they had to take the one flight out of Podunk Falls at 0600 to connect to an international departure at 2230...