Last week I saw a Mesa (Skywest?) 175 RJ flight from the Terminal B RJ gates to LGA. I was somewhat surprised scope limitations did not prohibit that route from being an RJ. Is it allowed because LGA is technically not a Hub? Or can they do anything they want with RJs so long less than a certain amount are flying?

Either way I was frustrated it was one less New York overnight in our system, and my 50 seat RJ to podunk regional airport is often broken, late, or weight limited forcing me to buy the one way rental car home. I wish the 175 was going to my podunk regional, not LGA.

Rant over...

 

The airlines that are picking up cities of 20k people scattered around Kansas are mostly AirChoiceOne, Contour, Denver Air Express, etc. These markets are really really really really small.

 

Seems like my local town lost 50% of its regional (and only) feed. Four flights to two. I’m guessing EAS routing has something to do with the remaining service.

 

So ya'll can complain about going to BFE? But whatever, as long as it's mainline, right?

F138-

 

shoot. I love the small town layovers. It beats an hour and a half van ride in a noisy city.

 

Even the BFE overnights have decent hotels and 1-2 solid restaurants. I’m happy to have a 10 minute van ride, a steak dinner that costs 1/4 of what it does in NY, $4 old fashioneds, and a nice park or college campus to go run on in the morning. I’m going to many of the places I used to go in the RJ- and staying at a downtown hotel eating a nice dinner is a totally different overnight than minrest at the bedbug-infested airport comfort inn and suites hoping you landed in time to get a dessicated roller grill hot dog from the gas station before they closed.

NY/SF/CHI/LA/ etc are all fun too but on a 14-16 hour overnight the van ride eats up any time you’d use for big city fun.

The only exception would be the EAS route cities that will never see mainline service that barely have a holiday inn.

 

Always a treat to get a former RJ pilot who complains about seeing the same places again. I'll happily take a mainline jet into any of these smaller cities to keep mainline pilots doing the flying.


But I also think Podunk, Nebraska doesn't need taxpayer funded service so the few passengers a week don't have to drive an hour and a half to get somewhere.

 

I’ve seen E175s on 1500nm flights. From a hub to a large city. I’ve seen Houston to PBI on an E175. That e175 could have been an A319 or 737-700. The 175 at all major airlines are deployed on routes that could be served by mainline aircraft. The point of the RJ is to serve out stations that are too small for a large jet. But let’s be real the 175 and CRJ900 ARE large jets. Theoretically let’s say United has expanded to the limit and they are looking for new ways to expend then tapping into those very small underdeveloped markets where the -200 has pulled out of technically can add customers to the system. It’s just does the revenue make up for the costs. There is no longer a regional airliner. E175 are mainline jet size airplanes. It’s just that majors no longer operate DC9s/737-200s/etc. Delta is the only exception with the 717 and now the A220. The regional made sense when they flew B1900 or metro or E120. Now they are just being used because they are “cheaper” which I’m not even sure they are anymore.

 

I'm not sure why anyone is surprised by this. Kirby said he was going to start sending more mainline jets to formerly RJ destinations and he's doing it.

Isn't that a win for everyone? More mainline flying, more pilots hired, more seniority for everyone here already.

 

I thought we rid ourselves of this laughable line of thinking 20 years ago. You missed your calling as a manager. Unnecessarily kneecapped by a MTOW limit? You self-appointed airline analyst, you.

United has always been welcome to deploy smaller aircraft with pilots on our seniority list. But for years they benefited from cheap labor and room under scope clause caps. Tough luck - them days passed.