drrhythm2

Tiny plane compared to what? I've flown several other jets and it's no louder than they are, and those were nice corporate jets. Creaking noise? Give me a break.

freezingflyboy

I'm not sure what your hangup on size is about, but I was talking more about the systems and the operation of the aircraft. The only people who don't think they're plane is underpowered are the 757 drivers.

Creaking noise? What are you talking about? You sound like another one of those buffoons who fly twice a year and want to comment on everything like they're an expert. Yeah, NEVER heard a sidewall panel on an Airbus or Boeing creak. Ever.

skylover

What will be the replacement of the hundreds of CRJ and ERJ145 planes in service today? The CRJ1000?

Avroman

I can't remember ever having an issue with the CRJ-900's power. Comfort, now that's a whole nother story.

freezingflyboy

So naive you are in the ways of the airlines, young padawan. If I could answer that question for you then I wouldn't be working, that's for sure. But I can speculate and talk out of my butt with the best of 'em so here goes...

There will probably not be another 50-seat jet produced in the numbers of the CRJ and ERJ unless there is some radical change in engine technology or fuels used. Now, you build a jet that can efficiently burn natural gas for a CASM at or below current levels, that would be a game changer and I may revisit that statement. The airlines just binged on the RJ when it was new and oil was cheap, they built and bought WAY too many of them and are now are suffering from "50-seat hangover".

Just because the CRJ1000 is a newer airplane and starts with the letters "C R J" doesn't mean that its the logical replacement for all the current sub-70 seat RJs out there. For one thing, it is NOT an RJ. It's twice the size of the -200 and E145 and falls well outside the scope clauses for most (all?) majors, as it should. It's a DC-9 for Christ's sake! Skinnier and pointier, yes, but still a DC-9. Now, assuming scope clauses hold and fuel prices continue to increase, you may see some of the mainline carriers start to fill the gaps in their load-capability with some of the larger E-Jets and/or CRJs. Those aircraft would then be deployed on some of the routes where it's no longer efficient to send 8 50-seat RJs a day and where you might be better served sending a CRJ1000 or E-190 twice a day at peak connection times and a 50-seat RJ 3 or 4 times a day off-peak. Of course, the airlines hate to lose frequency more than they like to make money so that outcome is doubtful at best.

Then again, this could all be a bunch of BS because the big airlines really have not shown much interest in the CRJ1000. The thing has been on sale for almost 5 years now and only sold 55 frames. Not what I'd call flying off the shelves. More realistically, this is what I see happening:

• More CRJ7/900s and E170s out there replacing some of the 50-seaters on the larger markets where the 50s have no business being anyway.
• The short and dense stuff being taken over by the larger turboprops (ala UAL with the Q400s).
• Number of 50-seaters out there will continue to slowly decline, say another 15-20% from current levels but that will eventually level off.

Despite what you may have heard, the rumors of the death of the 50-seater have been greatly exaggerated. They were over-deployed when oil was cheap and the economy was good and we are just on the backside of the "50 seat bubble", if you want to call it that. They still have a role, though that role is diminishing somewhat (right sizing is more accurate). But I am reasonably confident that the 50 seat jet won't disappear entirely in my lifetime.

freezingflyboy

Alright, so 757 and CRJ900 drivers are the only ones who don't want more power. Noted

amcnd

SkyWest seems to retire them from Delta and repaint them, and a week later fly them for Usair in PHX... I think alot more of this will happen... Hard to not fly them, when the lease payments go from $75k a month to $25K...

drrhythm2

You make good points. I've been wondering how many cycles the 50 seat airframes are good for? Obviously they fly many more cycles than larger jets, even if they don't get high enough to fly at max diff all the time. I just wonder when the airframes themselves will start to time out. I mean, if no one is making them anymore and at some point they are just not safe/legal (or are too expensive to continuously check) to fly, what then?

freezingflyboy

That's a good question. I'm not sure what the exact limits are for the RJs but I was drinking beer with a couple mechanics a while back and that is one of their major complaints with the United Express flying. The average stage-length is much shorter than it used to with COEX so they are accumulating cycles much faster. I know one of the reasons we brought back some of the 135s is that there are a bunch of our 145s that are having to go in for heavy maintenance earlier than expected.

Assuming scope stays where it is for the major players, I see one of two things happening:
1) The airlines get past the "all jet fleet" idea and start employing some turboprops in markets that make sense. Unfortunately passengers have this hangup about things with propellers and airlines are more than happy to pander to that.

2) Somebody starts building a next-gen 50 seat jet with some marked improvements in efficiency/costs.

Otherwise, I think there are a lot of short/thin routes where a 50-seat jet doesn't have the economics and the passenger numbers just aren't there to support a larger RJ that are going to lose frequency or service entirely as fuel prices continue increase.

Utah

I think most of the 200s out there still have a lot of time left in them. SkyWest still operates some of the ones they received back in 93' or so. They have close to 45-50,000hrs/cycles on them. Most of the 200s flying were built in the last 10 years and have half or less than that.