Originally Posted by
Hedley
How will those things buy time for inefficient regional fleets? Wouldn’t those issues hit smaller markets equally hard, lower demand, and make the decision to park planes already facing retirement that much easier? If a major recession and high fuel prices are on the way, wouldn’t the legacy carriers use their near term deliveries to focus on improving efficiency by replacing older jets, drop low yielding markets, and then use future deliveries for growth when demand returns? Economic forces will definitely affect hiring at all levels, but expensive fuel and lowered passenger demand due to less discretionary income won’t do the regionals any favors. It won’t be good for anyone.
The 50 seaters will get parked fast. Not all of them, but many will go. The ones remaining will be on government subsidized routes. The 65-76 seaters will be getting run ragged through tough times though. Cheap staffing at the regionals and slowed hiring at majors will benefit regionals during this time. Majors will likely park the older portions of their narrowbody fleets (UA's airbus fleet, 752 fleet, etc)
Originally Posted by
Hedley
UAL alone has dropped around 20 small markets. If the legacy, LCC’s, and freight companies significantly reduce hiring, that would buy time more than anything. Fuel prices went way down during the pandemic also. Prior to the pandemic air travel was predicted to significantly grow. Our ATC system is pretty saturated and the only way to handle that growth is with larger aircraft. Considering that the regionals have all of the 70/76 seat aircraft that they are allowed, coupled with the age, unpopularity, and inefficiency of the 50 seaters, that growth will occur at the legacy level. Unless a viable 50 seat aircraft hits the market quickly, the regional fleets are going to significantly shrink over the next few years. Higher fuel prices will accelerate that. A full blown recession could slow everything down as well.
50 seaters will return full force in the form of ultra efficient turboprops like the new Embraer that launches this decade. The 145/200 will last until then. And as major hiring comes screeching to a halt here in the next few months with WW3 oil prices, the regionals will be able to catch up on staffing. A lot of those small markets were only dropped for staffing issues, and they will return as staffing at the regionals catches up.
Originally Posted by
skblu
Where do you have evidence of that? I’ve heard of plenty of airports having gate space and operational limitations but never “ATC saturation” being a thing.
There's a finite amount of airplanes that DEN can accept in one hour, and usually they go into flow control delay programs long before that because approach can't even handle what they're supposed to be able to handle on paper. Several other airports have the same problem, however EWR and the rest of NYC doesn't have much of an ATC problem but more of a "lack of runways" problem.