BOS-EWR is a premium route, capable of filling a 737, and thus a poor deployment of that plane.

MHT-EWR on the other hand, would be a good deployment.

The point is that people avoided the plane. They’d fly on them if that was their only choice, but they will be given a choice due to competition. As others have mentioned, the airlines really promoted the all jet service as a premium product. People look at a plane with 4 or 5 visible blades, and they see an inferior product. They see 30 fan blades inside a shroud and think that it is a more modern and safe aircraft. With the 50 seaters becoming old and unpopular, I’m pretty sure the fleet mix between the legacies and regionals will change over the next few years, but I’d be shocked if turboprops were involved.

Agreed. You can argue cost, fuel efficiency, and the sky is blue. You still will not dislodge the strong opinion of most PAX.

Remember the customer is always right.

You underestimate the power of good marketing.

I think it has been long enough that if a pleasant roomy product with amenities is offered people will forget their last flight in a prop that was noisy bumpy and for some reason 2.5 hours long flight from SFO to LAX they took in 2003.

The CRJ 200 and to the lesser extent the ERJ 145 has shown the public that a jet is not always the better option. Now if you configure the Props like a 200 then forget about it, you lost even before you started.

My thinking is that people want to ride on a 175 or bigger plane, and they want it to be a jet. I can see United eventually following Delta with the 220. If they bought 100 or so, UAX could get about 70 more 175’s. Depending on how many 550’s that they can convert (if that’s still the plan?), they could park all of the 145’s and 200’s and end up with a pretty good product. The 550 is a nice ride for the few places that actually need a 50 seat jet, the rest would be better served by larger jets. It should be interesting to see what the legacies do with the fleets once we get to the point of sustainability. Will they go back to more of the same old thing, or use this as an opportunity to update the fleet?

The places that need a 50 seater typically don’t need 10 first class seats.

It’s called a JETbridge.

This might the first time I've seen the word "energy" used correctly around the airlines, instead of as a sophisticated-looking substitute for "speed."