50 seater unprofitable....HUEY!!!!!
 

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired...all I am hearing now and days is that "50 seaters are unprofitable"...and yet no one has come up with any stats on how this could be....SO FAR... Delta's "The airline said the cuts would come from parking 15 to 20 mainline aircraft and 20 to 25 regional jets. Delta also will thin frequencies and reduce point-to-point routes. " NWA is "removing 15 to 20 planes from service. Ten of those planes will be older DC-9s, the rest will be a mix of Boeing 757s and Airbus A320s and A319s." United "will remove 10-15 older mainline jets to partially offset fuel costs that could swell $1.2 billion more than planned this year." Jetblue...well.... "will sell four more Airbus A320s, on top of the six it previously announced that it would sell. In total, 10 A320s will leave the fleet by early 2009" US Airways..."will fly three fewer planes during the second half of the year than previously expected and could cut back further"

The only thing RJ related is from Delta of which we all know what happened there...MESA.

So with all this...why are we screaming that the RJ's are unprofitable? It seems that the bulk of things that are getting cut are the mainline jets...to be particularly honest about it...we should be wishing that RJ flying is getting cut not mainline flying because I don't know about you but that is where I wanna be.

But if anyone has any STAT's....not rumors...on how the RJ's are unprofitable...please share:confused:

Of course they (RJ's) are unprofitable...! Any aircraft won't make money if you sell tickets at or near a zero-margin!

Unfortunately, we'd need to raise prices to keep the RJ-dream alive. That aint gonna happen.

And the numbers are there, btw...RJ's burn a little bit less fuel to carry many fewer passengers than smaller mainline-sized aircraft (not to mention the lack of real premium seating - the cash-cow of a mainline bird). Can't argue that point.

How often is your RJ full...mine maybe 50% of the time...so lets but a 75% full RJ versus a 50% full Airbus..(50% because they have more seats)...which looks more profitable on paper to your share holders. What is going to sell more shares of your company...(not like airlines are selling shares anyways...but if they were)...I would buy the shares of a company that looks good on paper and are filling their seats.

On another note...STATS...now which of the above aircraft will burn less fuel at cruising altitude....Airbus 319,320....DC9...757...CRJ-200. Does anyone have those stats I know that the RJ ranges between 2400-2800 pph. Averaging about 400-500 groundspeed. Plus the crew...of course...cost less.

RJ's are profitable if they are properly utilized. We see what happens when airlines use them to compete in low yield markets (Indy Air), but most customers flying an RJ pay massive premiums to travel to small market airports. MLB, AEX, AGS, ILM, etc are a few examples of typically very high yield markets that RJ's serve well. Hundreds of other markets are out there that RJ's are profitable on.

At this point, there are far too many RJ's for them to all be profitable. Thus the move to reduce RJ flying. RJ's of all sizes are here to stay though. 50 through 90 seat RJ's all serve niche markets and will make money once the parent companies figure out how to use them all to their designed potential.

Was told once that a 50 seat RJ makes profit on every passenger count about 15....was three years ago and times have changed.

I would like to see real comparisons instead of speculation.

RJs could probably be used profitably if airlines charged what they needed to and never flew RJs over 1hr legs.

That's the problem - RJ's, like any other Jet, are more profitable as the legs get longer (spending more time in cruise). It's the time spent in the low altitudes (up and down) and the mid-altitudes of short-hops that burn the go-juice.

I wish I could quote your quote...but it seems like you are misunderstanding flyboydan....he just said the exact opposite.

You are saying RJs are more profitable on longer legs (because they burn less in high altitude cruise then down low)... and he is saying RJs would be more profitable if they only flew shorter routes (which is the correct answer:D).

Stage length has little to do with how profitable an RJ is. A 50 seat RJ can be profitable as long as they are used in the proper markets. Low fare routes are not good uses for RJ's regardless of stage length.

Absolutely correct! RJ do not need to be flying routes under an hour (some may day 1.5 hours), those routes should be T-Prop routes seeing they do a better job pushing the same number of Pax for less than 1/2 the fuel burn with minimal time difference due to it being a short leg. RJ aren't being properly utilized and for that matter most of the a/c in the 121 world aren’t as well.

BTW, you can charge more to make an RJ profitable or you can make more with a T-Prop.

50-seat RJ's burn far more fuel per available seat than larger aircraft...ANY larger aircaft including 70 seaters.


If you have 150 pax, you can either use 3 RJ's or one 737...the 73 will burn far less fuel and cost less to buy and maintain than 3 RJ's.

The only downside to the 73 is frequency...the pax have one flight schedule per day instead of three. This is a big deal, and it was one of the driving forces bheind the rise of the RJ...but with fuel prices where they are, the airlines are not as worried about frequency.

Rough numbers (cruise):

737-7: 5,000 lbs/hour
CRJ 200: 3,000 lbs/hour

Agree with ExperimentalAB and JetJock. RJs are better for the longer haul if priced correctly. $x per seat mile means more money for the RJ over a longer distance where most of that longer distance will be in cruise where they really shine. That equals more profit.

Take that same $x per seat mile and use it on shorter trips and you have an aircraft that is burning a hole in the wallet trying to climb up to altitude at TO power before starting the decent. There is less distance to pull the power back to a more conservative setting as well. This is where T-props will shine.

While some T-props have longer distance they lack the speed of the jets. There's a reason why movies are around 2hrs in length. They miscalculated the initial Lord of the Rings movie by 20 minutes or something like that. Had they cut the film 20 min they could have shown it an additional time each day making substantially more money. Same goes for the RJ vs T-prop. While the T-prop might get from A to B more efficiently there is a point that once past an RJ, while less efficient, still becomes more practical since they can add an additional flight.

IAH-STL is a prime example. T-Props could make the flight but the RJ, due to speed, can make MORE flights in a day. Every flight is always overbooked so it's a money making leg.

Its all about the routes flown, fares charged, and passenger demand. Take a CRJ flying ATL-JFK with 50 pax paying 150 bucks each. Thats $7500. Take a CL-604 flying from TEB-MIA with 4 pax paying a total of $10000. Same airplane (pretty much) but people are willing to pay much more for great service taking them where they want to go.

How about if you chartered a Saab 340 in the middle of a snowstorm Christmas Eve in Chicago where there are 5000 Passengers stranded at the ORD airport. I guarantee youll be able to find a few who will pay thousands of bucks to get home to Peoria.

another downside in the 737-7 for pax's is that it cannot serve some of the smaller airports that the RJ's currently fly to.

3,000lbs cruise on a 200?! I had no idea they burned that much. At FL36/37 I'm sitting at 2k flat. Maybe 40lbs or so less. (ERJ-145)

Pretty sure a 737-700 could do 80%+ of airports that a CRJ utilizes.

There will always be an niche for the "RJ"...the long, thin, profitable routes that one can charge a premium on for no connection, like the RDU-AUS paring that Eagle is or was doing. Flying 300-500 miles to medium-sized cities out of a hub where your average loads are only 30-70 folks are another good use of the RJ. Flying one from CVG to LEX/SDF/DAY 9 times a day doesn't make any sense.

Wikipedia - Cost per Available Seat Mile vs. Revenue per Available Seat Mile

CRJ-200s don't get above FL350 that often...I've seen (IIRC) about 2400pph at FL360 and .78M before though.

There is a context that one must understand when saying RJ's are not profitable - and that's how they are deployed under fee per departure agreements.

Consider that most RJ's are operated in fee-per-departure arrangements with fuel being a pass-through expense. This means that RJ operators get paid a set fee to operate the flight and don't pay for the gas.

For the purchaser (the UAL, NWA, DAL's of the world) the fee-per-departure model is a money loser when oil is at $100/barrel. RJ's are on the cost side of the balance sheet to be certain. The question is; what is the feed worth to the network?

For a network operator, an RJ flight might cost $4000 to operate (fee+fuel) but only yield $3000 in revenue (hypothetical round numbers). From a network operator's perspective RJ's are "unprofitable" with fuel at current levels and pass-through agreements.

Very true...a point not mentioned yet. The regionals are around for feed...What is the value of the feed? Those connecting pax's may bring an RJ, micro-speaking (operating in the red or at slim margin), into the black, in macro-terms.

Additionally, if United were to say that they no longer wanted to service ORD-DSM, for example...Those customers that were flying into ORD for international or other money-making routes may choose American and their Eagle feed instead.

If you take Delta for example, they take out the RJ feed not only because they are unprofitable, but because of the lack of revenue they bring to the table.

Delta wants their RJ with business class section, because they bring a higher revenue, and people are beginning to realize how small those RJs are. When you can get a used MD90 on the used market for about 10mil, it really doesn't make sense to invest in these shiny 200 where it burns more gas/pax, and bring in less revenue per flight.

There are very, very few Airports that we operate in and out of that a mainline aircraft could not utilize. Mainline aircraft, for the most part, have the excess power to get in and out with impressive loads while we frequently find ourselves weight-restricted.

Look at Orange County, or Roanoke (and the list goes on). Short runways, but always bustling with the likes of UPS/FedEx, WN, UA, DL, US, etc...

Small plane does not always mean access to smaller fields. In all seriousness, our RJ's are far less flexible than their mainline counterparts.

At the smaller airports, it's not generally the length of the runway that limits the utilization by larger aircraft. The limiting factor tends to be the load-bearing capacity. Regardless of how much power a 757 has, it will sink in a runway not built to handle its bulk.

Very true - forgot to mention that! Typically, however, I don't see the runway/taxiway load-bearing ability to be too much of a factor...And looking at some 10-9's, it looks like the typical gear-truck configuration of a mainline aircraft allows for sufficient load-spread...

You guys hit it home perfectly. Just because the ticket price for the RJ, to bring a passenger into a hub, may not cover the cost of the flight to operate, you must factor in the amount the airline probably is charging for that passenger to connect on a mainline flight, particularly international.

The mainline guys know what they are doing. They operate the right size airplane on a route that best suites the cost of operating it. If the route can only sustain 50 seats, it would cost more to operate a 70 seater on it.

As for running three 50-seaters on a route instead of a 150 seat 737, you must take into account that they need that frequency due to different connections those passengers bought tickets on throughout the day. Mainline may be better off because of this since they now can offer more flights themselves, because they have maximized the passengers they have brought into their hub.

Load bearing capacity isn't something many are worried about (if any). Just about any airport with a terminal is capable of taking most aircraft. I don't know of any airports I've flown into for CHQ that couldn't take Boeings. The heaviest 757 has a lower load bearing than the 737-400, 600, 700, 800, 900ER and every model of the MD-80 family.

Pax loads/environment are main issues. It wasn't very uncommon for 727s to be weigh limited out west because of the heat. 6,300ft runway could take the weights just fine but they need more runway so they'd take off almost empty then head to SAT to get gas before their longer trip.

Exactly - more (and larger) wheels to distribute the weight.

For the older mainline aircraft powered by turbojet/low-bypass turbofan engines, then yes, that would be a consideration for the RJ...but the vast majority of today's aircraft with 5:1 bypass are phenomenal in comparison. Nearly 80% of a high-bypass's takeoff thrust is from the N1 Fan...

I understand just stating. They still need the length. There's a lot of black smoke still trailing around in the sky.

I Love that black smoke trail :D Reminds me of a Pilot's kind of Airplane...cables and pulleys, no GPS, no FD, lousy A/P...oh wait there I go again LoL

i've read your post (good questions) and people's responses (great answers), but i'm drawn back to your original post...what does "huey" have to do with anything? which of these "hueys" are you referencing?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UH-1_Iroquois

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey%2C_Dewey_and_Louie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Lewis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Huey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_P._Newton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long


just curious...thanks.

Wow dontsurf...a lot of homework there - you must be really curious?! LoL

all ya gotta do is go to the disambiguation page of wiki, not thatttt hard

It's funny no one attempted to answer your actual question :). If I were to guess it would be because it costs the airlines in question a LOT of money to break contracts. It's easier and cheaper to park a plane they own. Just a guess.

Most airports with terminals were designed for larger airplanes. My little hometown is a turboprop-only destination today, but used to get the 727.

Many airlines have operated RJ's as hub-fillers...with little to no regard for the RJ segment's profitability. The idea was that the real money would be made on the mainline ticket once the pax reached the hub.

When I flew in the US Airways system (legacy, pre-merger) the RJ leg to the hub was often at no extra charge.

The COMAIR pilots used this same arguement in 2001...they took the approach that COMAIR itself didn't need to be profitable. They fel that the profits from mainline connecting pax would pay for their contract.

or they lose less than a larger airframes with light loads e.g. 45 in an RJ loses less than 45 in an MD80. why do it ? keep the integrity of the network in tact

I skipped a page on this thread, and do not know if it has been said before.

But could it be possible that the fee for departure scheme allows mainline to budget with more fixed cost in mind. Witht this they can budget how much their hub feeds are going to cost with little regard to revenue the generate.

I used the same idea when I bought a new car with a warranty.... sure it cost more per month, but now I could better manage my budget becasue a new car was more reliable and mx cost were slim to none. Whereas, old car, had no idea when the engine would let go, or when something expensive would break. Per month the old car was cheaper, but the liabilty of waiting to pay out a large expense was becoming too much.

I may be overstepping my bounds thinking that there is a managment group with that kind of foresight

Reeves

Reeves... Do you by chance know "David Reeves"? Not "Dave Reeves" or "David Reeve".... he is pretty particular about that.

Not that I am aware of.

My Reeves came from canada, and the family ties were mostly cut before my time.

Sorry

Reeves