Originally Posted by
rickair7777
Most major scope is smarter than that. The weight limit is normally for CERTIFIED MTOW, in addition to seat count.
So removing seats and pax might get under the pax count but will not change the certified MTOW. Otherwise you could have mesa fly 777's full of belly cargo.
The 550 is an end-run around scope weight, but it required a new type certificate from the mfg. That could be done for the 900 but it would take time and money. Also I don't think it could fit under 50-seat scope at all... the empty weight would be very close to 50K without any payload on board.
The 900’s wouldn’t have to get to 50 seats, it would move to 65 seats just like the skywest 700’s are. And about the weight thing I don’t think Americans scope deals with weight, only seats so it really would be as simple as yanking seats out of the thing. No new type certificate required. But I 100% could have been misinformed on that.