This website is blowing up with CRJ-550 (and don’t come to Atlas threads). Having spent 5 years in commercial planning at AA, I think it is worth mentioning that nothing in this industry gets approved without mountains of data, scenarios, models, stress tests, and other department stakeholders poking holes in your strategy to find ways to make your analysis even more conservative.

That being said, although seating density is the best way to minimize CASM, it is often not the best way to maximize RASM, and the real gold standard of profitability...RESM. Why do you think AA flys around a 77W with 304 seats in a tube that can easily fit 546? From an outsider, the business case of the CRJ-550, is as follows:

Attract consultants whom are buying near full fare flexible economy tickets, (whom are elite tier upgradeable) to UA, thus maximizing aircraft RASM/RESM. Additionally, I bet the analysis showed that the marginal revenue upside of flying the same CRJ7 tube with 65 seats vs. 50 seats was not worth the lost opportunity being able to add E175s elsewhere in the system. At the end of the day, system profitability is more important than route profitability.

Overall I think this is a very clever strategy, but one I don’t see AA following in the short term.