Originally Posted by
Budgiesmuggler
If that is the case, and 50 seat aircraft are here to stay, what is going to replace the high cycle CRJ200's and E145's?
Is it full cycle and back to props with ATR's or will it be derated larger aircraft like to CRJ700 and MRJ70.
I don't think there are any expectations that aircraft the size of the A220 would ever be considered within the scope at mainline, but if the next generation of RJ's are heavier because of engine technology while remaining 50/76 seats what is actually being given up?
RJ's don't *have* to be heavier, in fact both technical advances and the need/desire to be lighter and more efficient should drive the airframe weight down for a given number of seats. Over (scope) weight 70 seat RJ's are due to design challenges, which instead of being addressed holistically were patched with band-aid fixes which added weight. The managers shined it off as a non-issue on the assumption that scope could be readily fixed in their favor.
The 50 seat market is a dilemma... the older designs are not coming back to production, and a new clean-sheet design might be too expensive since the majority of the RJ market has shifted to 70 seaters... might not be enough sales opportunities to pay for a new design. Solution might CRJ550 or an EMB equivalent, or possibly back to props. Props are very fuel efficient, but mainline is convinced that pax still hate "crop dusters" even though the new ones are pretty quiet. IMO Horizon has a good thing going... a significant part of their feed customer base is still used to props... they shouldn't spoil them with RJ's.