Originally Posted by
dayzoff
How do you think United, Delta and American fill up their widebody planes? It is with feed off the regionals! Look at how many wide bodies Southwest, Spirit and Frontier have-Zero.
Regionals expand the mainline airline’s route system allowing for more destinations and larger aircraft out of their hubs to many international destinations that would be unprofitable without the feed!
If those people wanted to go on their trips, they would still do it. It's not like they are going to say "it's another 30 minutes or hour away, so I won't take this 16 hour trip now."
The only reason some cities have service at all is because the airlines don't want one of the others to have the convenience of the only closer airport. For many of those RJs are just more flights per day vs a larger aircraft that could serve them instead. It's a convenience, not a necessity.