Noticed the first 170 for Envoy is N761RW. Strange tail number seeing that Republic uses RW.

The envoy RW is named for Ric Wilson, VP of Flight Ops at the Voy.

Just how many have his initials, this one make 2 that I know of. Must be a very important person.

Happening sooner than I predicted. Air Wiskey and CommutAir are in big trouble unless the modify their business model big time.
https://www.flightglobal.com/fleets/...144355.article

That article makes it sound like the new narrow bodies are going to directly replace the 50 seat RJs. That’s just not the case. The plan to phase out 50 seaters is on going for all the carriers, but the time frame wasn’t really specified. They will still have what ever RJs their scope will allow. It also said United operates “hundreds of ageing A320-family jets and 737NGs” The new order is 275 aircraft, which is basically a one for one replacement of those older, smaller, less efficient versions of the same plane. Passenger seat capacity growth, but not overall fleet growth.

500 orders if including existing contracts. 200 are new growth and 300 are replacements of which they plan to cull 2/3rds of their 50 seat flying. That’s not looking great for the 50 seat market at United.

If I am an Air Wisconsin or CommutAir pilot then I am not pleased about this development.

I certainly agree that it doesn’t bode well for the company. This is a long term plan. If you’re already there as a captain, this is a good time and you should have already been working on an exit strategy. Definitely not a good time to go there as a new hire. The companies will slowly wither away.

More consolidation and what most people have been saying. The smaller regionals won’t survive in the long term.

According to Scott Kirby, their plan is to significantly reduce their RJ fleet. I believe the number he used was reducing it from 35% to 10% when all is said and done.

I don’t know if that is just happy talk to convince MilePlus members to stay loyal, but he certainly framed it as mainline replacing RJs.