Piedmont! Why???? Because it makes no sense!

 

What makes you guys think United wants the Q400 rumor around Pinnacle is that when they approached United to rework the contract so that they could be operated for a profit United told them they were not interested in the airframe anymore. I guess Continental really liked them but United doesn't want them. Makes you wonder what the new scope clause is going to look like over there. I don't know about US Air's desire for more turbo props but I guess if someone does it cheep enough someone will bite.

 

Just for the accuracy of this discussion, Lynx has been gone for a while now. The former Lynx Q400s have been operated at Republic (RAH) on the Republic certificate (YX) since at least May 2011. There are two left still flying and they operate with "Brickyard" callsigns.

 

Very very reliable sources say they are going to RAH. In fact memos have already been sent to ground agents on the chataqua side. I don't know if they're getting all of them but they're getting some....

 

Let's be honest, what's a more reliable source than gate agents? Nothing!

 

My opinion is the most likely place these airframes will go will be to various foreign carriers. Look at every domestic operation and you've got major challenges.

They are not going anywhere to provide lift for US Airways due to scope so Piedmont, AWAC and Mesa are out not to mention what a potential merger with AMR would do for USAEPA. United clearly is trending towards Delta's zero props position so Commute air or Go Jet is far fetched at best. Horizon doesn't need them period and Republic wouldn't know what the heck to do with them if they got them for free.

Nope, these Q's will soon be losing their N numbers. Look for Porter to pick up a few and maybe Jazz. The rest will go to Europe or Asia.

Face it people, TP's are a dying fixture in US Domestic aviation.

Frankly I hope I'm wrong....

 

Not just gate agents.... Just wait, you'll see.

 

Which is absolutely ridiculous in so many different ways. Now this is all based off of my limited experience in the airline industry from flying a TP, but hear me out. Who doesn't love the fuel savings over the RJ's, and on short trips they just can't be beat. The whole argument of the public hating them is a load of BS as far as I've seen. I think I can count on one hand how many people complained after they got off the plane and that's on a 1900. With that being said I feel like your typical Saab/ATR/Dash is much nicer than the 1900 passenger wise.

I just don't see all the discontent of an efficient airplane.

 

The problem here is Republic has only one side of it's operation that it has any say on what kind of equipment operates it's routes and that is obviously Frontier. They didn't want the Q when they bought Frontier so why would they want them now? RAH's customers: UAL, DAL, USA don't want them..So these Q's ending up anywhere on the RAH property is likely to be nothing but not a chance.

 

Your problem here is you see unmatched efficiency and that is simply not the case.

This opinion is understandable for someone to have if said person has not been paying attention. The regional airline industry as a whole is trending towards downsizing. Bigger airframes, fewer flights, fewer frequency, fewer cities. The Q 400 makes no sense for short haul lift and has too many contractual obstacles to overcome to expanding the market share of this airframe on RJ styled stage lengths. No one is making 50 or less seat TP's anymore and only small capacity TP's make sense economically on short stage lengths. Where does that leave us? Why put a Q400 on a route that using a 90 seat or larger RJ would have the same or extremely close fuel burn for the leg time? You like TP's I get it. Unfortunately your assessment is off kilter regarding the reality of the market. It's NOT just about lbs. per hour! If it was there would still be 200 seat four engine TP's plugging around on US routes. Now if Bombardier for example put an updated 200 or 300 back into production then maybe we might see TP's sticking around a bit longer. But unfortunately even if that happened the city pairings between stations spaced by less than 100 miles, the domain of the TP, are drying up. The whole of the EAS system is going away and legacy carriers want less seats and fuller flights with lower operating costs. That means higher capacity airframes, not smaller.