Regional airlines pros and cons

[Comair 100ER]

At what point do the legacies/majors bring all their flying in house? My AA friends shared a screenshot with me that talked about the staffing woes PSA is enduring. Basically it talked about how many captains had multiple offers and that a lot of FOs are being picked up by LCCs and ULCCs as well. I’m confident that PSA isn’t the only airline going through this right now. 2022 and beyond is looking like it’s going to be a mess for the regionals.

 

[jynxyjoe]

The regionals will pay more, that will increase the price of tickets 5bucks, and people will choose to drive instead. Not everyone, but enough that we won't need more pilots. When does it become cost efficient to bring the flying in house? My hope is i get paid so much more next contract that the answer is NEVER.

 

[bimmerphile]

The regionals will pay more, that will increase the price of tickets 5bucks, and people will choose to drive instead. Not everyone, but enough that we won't need more pilots. When does it become cost efficient to bring the flying in house? My hope is i get paid so much more next contract that the answer is NEVER.

My hope is for the regionals to implode like a collapsing star and in the process the jets get moved to mainline and all those folks get hired at a real job flying the same planes but for current book cs100/190 rates instead of farming out inferior products for subpar results

A lad can dream

 

[tcco94]

My hope is for the regionals to implode like a collapsing star and in the process the jets get moved to mainline and all those folks get hired at a real job flying the same planes but for current book cs100/190 rates instead of farming out inferior products for subpar results

A lad can dream

CS100... Nice

 

[Wardogg]

We've got
AA WO - Envoy, PSA and Piedmont
Endeavor
SkyWest
Republic
Mesa
CommutAir
Air Wisconsin
GoJet
Horizon

Anyone else I'm missing? Anyone feels like chiming in?

You forgot AHA! Out of Reno.

 

[BobDDuck]

At what point do the legacies/majors bring all their flying in house?

Probably never. The cost (and head count per block hour) differences are too big. If the regional can't staff, frequency and destinations go away, or the feed gets shifted to players like Cape Air. and that's about it. You can't operate a 737 (or even a A220) 5 times a day into a place like Ashville, NC or Burlington, VT and not lose money.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Probably never. The cost (and head count per block hour) differences are too big. If the regional can't staff, frequency and destinations go away, or the feed gets shifted to players like Cape Air. and that's about it. You can't operate a 737 (or even a A220) 5 times a day into a place like Ashville, NC or Burlington, VT and not lose money.

I remember flying 737s and DC9-30s into Roanoke, Burlington, Ithaca, Elmira, Knoxville, Allentown, Erie and many more small towns in the late 90s.

Even now with a much larger carrier still flying 737s into Lubbock, Harlingen, Little Rock, Tulsa, Savanah, Eugene, Fresno.

Not saying you're wrong, just that many smaller markets supported bigger airplanes long before RJs were born. The RJs allowed some hub bypass, hub raiding, and low cost high frequency (on employee's backs, not on CASM)

I'll personally be very happy to see the regional model die a long overdue death. I'd be happy to see Dash 8s and Saab's feeding the hubs again. But if I never see another RJ it would be just fine by me.

 

[BobDDuck]

I remember flying 737s and DC9-30s into Roanoke, Burlington, Ithaca, Elmira, Knoxville, Allentown, Erie and many more small towns in the late 90s.

Even now with a much larger carrier still flying 737s into Lubbock, Harlingen, Little Rock, Tulsa, Savanah, Eugene, Fresno.

Not saying you're wrong, just that many smaller markets supported bigger airplanes long before RJs were born. The RJs allowed some hub bypass, hub raiding, and low cost high frequency (on employee's backs, not on CASM)

I'll personally be very happy to see the regional model die a long overdue death. I'd be happy to see Dash 8s and Saab's feeding the hubs again. But if I never see another RJ it would be just fine by me.

Sure... but what were ticket prices back then, and how much of the country outside of the saturated portion of the route map did those airlines cover?

 

[BobDDuck]

(Sorry for the crappy source)

United Airlines is dropping 8 more US cities, suspending another - The Points Guy

United Airlines is pulling out of eight U.S. cities — two in Michigan, two in Texas, one in Missouri, Wisconsin, Indiana and Louisiana — as the pandemic continues to have an outsized effect on small regional airports.

thepointsguy.com

 

[woodreau]

Why cant they just do it the way the regionals used to do it...

ORD - CWA - ATY - PIR - DEN

a round robin - one mostly empty plane, but serves 4 cities with one plane instead of 3 small planes serving 3 small cities?

 

[tcco94]

Why cant they just do it the way the regionals used to do it...

ORD - CWA - ATY - PIR - DEN

a round robin - one mostly empty plane, but serves 4 cities with one plane instead of 3 small planes serving 3 small cities?

I mean regionals already do this with EAS flying where they can

 

[pwttogfk]

I firmly support making regionals regionals again. Flying a plane bigger than the first 737s and DC-9s on hub-hub routes isn’t a “regional” route. Cheap oil and cheap labor’s created a B-scale that needs to go away. East Podunk goes back to a single mainline flight a day or a few Cape Air-sized flights? Ok by me.

 

[alaskadrifter]

My wag is that turbo props make a come back, as they make economic sense for small communities.

 

[tcco94]

My wag is that turbo props make a come back, as they make economic sense for small communities.

Why kill the 200 then? Thing is a gold mine for management and share holders. Look at how well Skywest uses that thing.

 

[///AMG]

I remember flying 737s and DC9-30s into Roanoke, Burlington, Ithaca, Elmira, Knoxville, Allentown, Erie and many more small towns in the late 90s.

Even now with a much larger carrier still flying 737s into Lubbock, Harlingen, Little Rock, Tulsa, Savanah, Eugene, Fresno.

Not saying you're wrong, just that many smaller markets supported bigger airplanes long before RJs were born. The RJs allowed some hub bypass, hub raiding, and low cost high frequency (on employee's backs, not on CASM)

I'll personally be very happy to see the regional model die a long overdue death. I'd be happy to see Dash 8s and Saab's feeding the hubs again. But if I never see another RJ it would be just fine by me.

As a kid flying in the late 80's-mid 90's from EUG, it was always on a UAL 727 or 737, and then Morris Air started bringing their 73's as well. Now it is one mainline painted RJ or another. But Horizon still brings the heat on the dash-8 (or I guess Q400 more accurately). I love those planes and the happy hour. But really we should probably be talking about bringing 727s back to the commuter role

 

[Autothrust Blue]

Why kill the 200 then? Thing is a gold mine for management and share holders. Look at how well Skywest uses that thing.

I can think of SO many reasons, but none of them are financial, necessarily.

Why cant they just do it the way the regionals used to do it...

ORD - CWA - ATY - PIR - DEN

a round robin - one mostly empty plane, but serves 4 cities with one plane instead of 3 small planes serving 3 small cities?

There are a few such routes, mostly EAS, believe it or not. Done a few through flights in the bad-old days.

 

[tcco94]

I can think of SO many reasons, but none of them are financial, necessarily.

Right... If we are talking about bringing back turboprops because it makes financial sense then why get rid of a gold mine? As much as I'd happily love to see that thing parked in the desert. Hell if they need help sending 'em to the desert I would, good riddance.

 

[Richman]

Pining away for the good old days when the 727 flew into Scottsbutt, Nebraska…

Some things to remember….with regulation, fares were elevated in high density routes, that that fare premium subsidized flights to Nowheresburg. It took the airlines a few years after deregulation to figure out that probably wasn’t a viable model once new entrants started competing on prime city pairs.

It wasn’t until about 84 or so that you saw the wholesale shedding of small cities.

Flightinfo was a good spot until the owner passed away. PPW was fine until founders left and the “airline stink” term came into usage, and the moderation got really heavy.

 

[Murdoughnut]

This thread got me curious so I ran an analysis ...

Average U.S. domestic stage lengths for narrow and wide bodies have increased over time - albeit slightly from narowbodies.

But ... RJ stage lengths haven't changed at all, nor have those for turboprops. I would have thought those bigger ERJs would be doing longer stages as they replaced the CRJ 200 - but apparently not.

Turboprops are still just doing 126nm average trips - flights that probably won't even be allowed in a few years if the U.S. takes a cue from Europe.

 

[jynxyjoe]

The thought pre covid was, you can charge so much more for a leg with a first class you're stupid to keep flying 50seaters on those routes if you had the 70 seaters available.

If business people never come back and we start the race to the bottom (lowest fare wins), the tprops could come back. No one knows what this will look like in 3 years, the market is disrupted.