Originally Posted by
brocklee9000
And there are plenty of airports regionals operate in where a mainline plane would never be able to go. It’s not always a matter of consolidating 5 daily flight to 1 weekly flight, or maintaining slot/gate space, or whatever frequency is required at small airports for EAS agreements. Sometimes it comes down to size and performance. You’ll never see mainline at State College, Flagstaff, Aspen, Ithaca, or any number of small airports.
Before deregulation, Ozark did milk runs up and down the Mississippi River, from Memphis to Minneapolis, 5 intermediate stops. Covered a lot of what are now EAS airports. Used the DC-9 (prestretched version of the Mad Dog). Worked fine.
If two or three off and two or three on at each stop, it was considered a good day. If loads were 35%, things were good.