My question is will this aircraft ever see service with US regional's that currently have it on order. It would appear that not only Mitsubishi, but Embraer with the E2 can't get their latest regional jets under the MTOW. Scope clause agreements are up for review this year with United and next year with American and Delta and all three have invested one way or another it would appear the Regional Model is here to stay.

Quite rightly there are limits in place for both numbers of aircraft and seat capacity. But as we have seen with the CRJ550 if a mainline wants to "work" within the framework of the scope it will.

It would appear now that the critical factor is MTOW and meaningful range. Do the number of seats and MTOW go hand in hand to keep mainline in check or would it benefit regionals and pilots to fly the latest equipment based on the 50/76 seat capacity within the aircraft regardless on MTOW. (Or an MTOW within reason). With no other new regional aircraft in development will it mean a return to the prop era with ATR's for example to replace the aging E145/CRJ200 fleets at some point?

 

 

It's not up to regional pilots, scope is "owned" by mainline pilot groups.

A few regional pilots would prefer no further erosion in scope. Many don't care, and the lifers of course have nothing to lose, they'd fly narrowbodies for a token raise, given the opportunity.

Mitsubishi badly miscalculated when they blew off US scope limits when designing their airplane... their business case was based on the *assumption* that US majors (the best market in the world for RJs) would "take care of" their scope limits. Pilots dug in their heels after the lost decade and mitsubishi is still waiting for scope rollbacks. Skywest was the largest launch customer, with 100 notional orders. Those were on the books for many years, but were cancelled recently.

Mainline pilots might make a concession for *slightly* heavier RJs if they get something in return. But many pilots I know are hard-over on no more scope concessions. It might even be more emotional than logical at this point.

The fix may be to simply "re-certify" heavy RJ's at a lower MTOW and/or seat count. That typically meets the scope language, and is also more tolerable because the certification is hard to violate, unlike measures such as roping off a few seats or policy limits on cargo weight. That's what they did with the CRJ550. The downside is that the propulsion and structure are still physically optimized for a higher weight, so you take an economic hit by operating an airplane below it's actual design capacity load.

RJ manufacturers really need to either make big RJ's which are economical at mainline (A220 might fit the bill), or build an option into their designs to comply with "industry standard" scope.

 

Mainline pilots didn't care about scope until the E175 showed up.

That was the "oh my god" moment for mainline pilots.

 

The E175 (current generation, not the E2), is already restricted in weight due to scope. It’s MTOW is 89,000lbs but scope keeps it below 86,009 (except for the Compass E175s). As mentioned above, scope is bringing the CRJ550 weight down to 65,000lbs (down from 75,000lbs).

Restricting the E175E2 or the MRJ90 weights below 86,000 would really restrict payload and range.

 

Where the economics work someone will find a way.

Whoever said you needed codeshare? I can picture someone putting together an online portal - something like Amazon - where you just place an online order for a Moxy-like trip from city x to city y, and depending on sales, someone flys you on an MRJ or A220 or whatever aircraft makes the most economic sense.

Even legacy airlines are not immune to economic reality. Just ask TWA and Pan Am. Yes, it would require a hellacious amount of startup capital, but there is more of that concentrated in fewer hands than ever before. When we have people talking about space tourism and private companies putting people on the moon, a new regional/major without scope limits is not outside the realm of possibility.

 

I don’t think that would qualify under any part of the CFR. Not 121, not 135 and not 91 or you would already see it on a smaller scale. No “ride share” for the FAA

 

IIRC scope at some or most legacies does cover at least some aspects of code share, ie you can do "reciprocal" code share but not a one-sided scope work-a-round arrangement.

 

All you need to do is throw a “K” on the back of that 91 and problem solved. Ride share.

 

You must own a minimum of 1/16th of an aircraft under 91K. Wonder how much that would cost? Probably more than an airline ticky