Whew...

[PhillyAir5]

Thanks Jim.

Its definately something to watch out for in the future. Its interesting to see US flying roughly 7-8 times daily to a destination like ATL, using CRJ's and 1 E-170. I'm assuming its more profitable to run that schedule then say 3-4 flights involving the A320 fleet or 737. But thats why they make the decisions. 😀

 

[FCYTravis]

BoeingBoy:

Exactly right, I should have made clear there that I was replying to Rico's post 🙂

 

[FlyOnWall]

You're right - Air Wisconsin isn't going anywhere soon. Neither is CHQ - though that's only 15 or so E-145's we're committed to, it was part of the whole Republic agreement. We're contractually committed to both until the 2011-2013 timeframe.

Jim

[Doubly oops - I did it again...]

How long are the commitment periods with each of the contract carriers and for how many aircraft?

 

[BoeingBoy]

Its interesting to see US flying roughly 7-8 times daily to a destination like ATL, using CRJ's and 1 E-170.

Depends.....

2 CRJ rountrips probably cost more than 1 737 round trip with the same number of seats. Say a CRJ200 & CRJ700 vs a 737-300 -120 seats vs 126 seats - or 2 CRJ700's vs a 737-400 - 140 seats vs 144 seats. So if you can get the same number of passengers, you make more (or lose less) flying 1 round trip with a bigger plane than 2 with the smaller.

On the other hand, if less frequency results in losing passengers it depends on how many passengers you lose.

I honestly think is partly due to losing 737's and Airbuses while gaining RJ's. The mainline airplanes lost had to come off routes and the RJ's had to go on routes.

Jim

 

[john john]

Unfortunately, that's not what's being done here - at least in the nearer term. Very few of the smaller RJ's are going away anytime soon - last I saw just the handful of remaining Mesa jets under the "old" US contract will be gone this spring. 123 CRJ-200's and 30 ERJ-145's will be remaining - 153 50-seaters. That's what - double the size of "highly profitable" FlyI?

Throw in 14 CRJ-700's and you have 157 RJ's seating 70 seats or less. Without counting the E170's, which are really in a different class.

I'd be totally in favor of getting a mixture of E170/190's, flying them at mainline where the common type rating, training, maintenance, spare parts, etc keeps the cost down. But by all means, use them to replace a large part of those 153 50-seaters that are economically unjustifiable in today's economic environment.

Who knows? That may be Parker's plan.....

Jim

Why hasn’t APLA done this they had the opportunity

 

[BoeingBoy]

If you're talking about 170's on mainline, ALPA can't make the company buy any particular plane. Nothing prevents the company from doing it, though. Siegel could have put the 170's on mainline then and Parker can do it now.

Jim

 

[Rico]

I guess my opinions are based upon where I see things going for what had been the "legacy" carriers. IMO the importance of O+D traffic will be overshadowed by connecting traffic, into that carrier's international or alliance flying.

In that case, it is more important to have an ability to best serve the higher revenue traffic, than to have those extra twenty seats you have to sell cheaply to fill.

Is that market best served by the 737 or the E-190...?

The 737 has been a great workhorse for our fleet and many others, but much like the 727, it's role is being supplanted by newer designs. When the 737 came out, everyone said it was too small, too few seats, why bother when a 727 had better speed, capacity, and range... (just like with the E-190 vs. the 737). But look how popular the 737 turned out to be.

The thing is, we have a lot of 737's, and we will have quite a few for sometime. I am not saying that we are going to replace them anytime soon, but I am saying that if the E-190 is a success, then you will most likely see the E-195 appear as the 737 fleet is slowly downsized overtime.

As for the CRJ's, I am betting that they will follow the example of the Turboprops. We still operate a number of US Airways Express turboprops, yet we have greatly reduced the number. Remember that IMO connecting traffic will still require appropriate airframes to bring the higher revenue passengers to the hubs. An E-170 or E-190 might be too much aircraft for a town like ERI, but perfect for a DHC-8 to PHL or CRJ to CLT. Thus we will always require a large number of CRJ's and Dash 8's into the future.