If ASA or Comair just decided to not fly for Delta anymore or say Delta did not want them to fly flights for them, would the regional carrier be able to survive as a stand alone carrier. I know way back when regional airlines were literally regional. Would that same concept work today?

 

Ask the guys furloughed from Express Jet and former Independence Air employees.

 

Depends on your definition of "regional".

Midwest and Frontier could be considered regional...

 

Ayep no way...worth contemplating for amusement only!

 

all depend on the plan of action.SW started as a regional right? Express jet had a well plan but oil prices out of control brougth them down.Right idea at the wrong time.

 

Yep...XJet did it right; a casualty of poor circumstances only. Then again, Aquafresh was for only a relative handful of aircraft, not the entire fleet.

 

Another downfall of both IDE and XJT was that their contract partners (UA and CAL, for instance) didn't take kindly to the new competition. UA killed Indy with price matching out of IAD and CAL most likely put a lot of pressure on XJT with a new contract for their CoEx flying. Chances are, any regional trying to start up even remotely competitive businesses will face the wrath of the very companies bankrolling the effort.

 

There will always be a market for 50, 70, 90 seater aircraft, there are too many variables to consider though, such as fuel price, competition, market saturation, marketing, code share agreements, you get the picture.

In my humble opinion, had it not been for the price of fuel our operation could have succeeded as we were tapping thin-under-served markets, with high yields.

So the short answer is maybe, but it's risky.

 

Yes, they did it right. They carefully selected markets which could be served with point-to-point RJ's but were too small to attract the interest of the Canyon-Blue Death Star.

But even so, their market niche was limited...attempts to expand outside of that would require narrow-bodies, and they would have to enter the brutal domestic cage-fight. To make matters worse, they were still employed by CAL, so they were further limited in that they had to avoid direct competition with CAL (or get fired).

The real difficulty for a traditional regional seeking to make the transition from regional contractor to real airline is that as they grow their branded flying they will eventually compete with their major partner, and get fired. The trick is to have enough money when you get fired to continue operations and grow into a self-sustaining operation without your regional feed income.

Startup airlines historically have about a 1% chance of survival

 

Can the majors survive without the "regionals"?