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Hello, could you please describe how the "trimming" of the airplane is technically solved and why some civil aircraft use depleted U238 (DU) for trimming?
Dear "Mr. Mentour Pilot". Thank you so much for your most eloquent and accurately detailed explanations and analyses of tragedies and their causes, that might "normally" not be very interesting to females who are not "flyers." After watching two of them, I , myself became so enamored by them , I forgot to go back to my BBC Crime and Retribution show! And I love those types of shows so much, because I enjoy trying to figure out why, who, and what is going on that "doesn't make sense.!" Ha good way to ruin a good movie, I suppose, but it seems to be my habit. I've known many aerospace inventors and pilots, personally, and some worked as insurance agent "trouble shooters." (that's what they termed themselves as being) and YOUR show reminds me so much of some of the things the uncovered. It was one of them who taught ME, to "look for" things that "were not there" in order to find what "was there," i.e, "the truth"....and I never forgot that. The sad tragedy I "experienced" or "was spared from" experiencing, was a childhood friend of mine who 'd invited me to go along with her on a flight from LA to Salt Lake City, Utah years ago. I couldn't find a babysitter for my young son, so I wasn't able to go with her and her fiancée-who was piloting their Piper plane. (Karen Jean Olsen's obituary is on line if you read this far ?) The plane crashed into a 10,000 foot mountain. Being a songwriter and a "dreamer", I wasn't surprised the next morning when Karen came to me in a Dream. She said, exactly, this..." Don't worry about me, I've been flyin' all along" That's exactly what she said...the rest of my story can be verified by her church bishop, the LDS Church and the Coordinator of their wedding at the Utah main church. The song, I thought you might enjoy it ---to me, was hopeful and positive; perhaps others might perceive it as being just too darn sad. But after having watched several of your extremely well coordinated videos, I'm inclined to believe that you and your family might really enjoy it. Karen and I sort of "etched" out a song together, that she kept saying she thought would make a great wedding song; but, of course WE were never able to finish it. I did, recently, and dedicated it to the memory of one of the most intelligent, and sweetest, friend I've every had . I kept asking, " Why her, and not me?" I guess that's a pretty normal reaction, actually, that you've probably heard before. I have a question for you in regard to a video of yours, in which a British pilot , who survived or warrent off, a crash.... I can't find it again, but maybe you know which one it was ? He said he "did not want to lower the landing gear to land on the water." My little pea brained creative mind kept asking, and I rewound it and listened several times to his explanation. WHAT makes "landing " on the water with landing gear lowered , a problem? EAsy one for you, just hard for me to 'fathom" the answer/ or the defense for that opinion..(pardon the pun!) the girl can't FATHOM who would "care" that the "landing gears" were going to enter WATER ? I'll look for it again and struggle with that some more later. I hope you enjoy MY songs rearranged from Karen's and my DREAM. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL OF THE HARD WORK YOU DO! Sincerely, Lynda Faye You Tubes: "Flyin' in the Mornin' on a High Flyin' Bird" (from the album at CDBaby as a folk song) and "He Was Only Seventeen" ( when he went off to war, etc.,) the rearranged version. ( "I Need a Miracle"-Karen's and my Wedding Song!) I'm sure she and her fiancée are up there married by now!)
Two very crucial facts that you did not touch on Petter, are 1) the tremendous size difference between the United States and Europe and 2) our total lack of a national public rail system. It is a much used reference point, but it needs repeating - all of France would fit comfortably inside of Texas with room to spare. Speaking as a business traveler who has spent time in the EU, our regional airlines essentially operate as your business class rail service. Is it the most effective or efficient way to do things? Not going to try to defend it one way or another. It evolved organically - in fact, there was a great advertisement by Delta back in the 1980's (using a stranded motorist) with their "We're ready when you are." campaign that captures it perfectly. In addition, for business travelers, who still make up the majority of the revenue on US flights, wasted time sitting in an airport hub is wasted money. Consolidating five regional flights/day to two large body jets does not well service this market. Point-to-point service in a country with 51 government centers plus the terratorial centers and the major financial hubs and every other city with manufacturing? I am not going to go there. Would the market "deal with" a loss of flight frequency because it has no other option? For a time. Until it finds more cost advantageous options which possibly will not involve flying at all. It is always good to remember who your customer is. Runway length and "international" in a name is not sufficient research to assess an airport. Runways are often built long in the expectation of growth or other reasons. Harrisburg, PA, and Tallahassee, FL, are both state capitals, and, accordingly, cities with much business travel. Respective populations and airport terminal gates: ~550,000 with 12 gates, and ~150,000 with 14 gates. Those really are not large markets. (My apologies to my Western sisters and brothers but my miles have been mostly east of the Big River. Please add your thoughts.) Net, net, I believe there are several more variables involved in why the regional system works for the NA market. I agree with you that financials are certainly a major aspect of it but there are other sides of those financials - if people stop flying, no one wins. My money is still on the regional system for the foreseeable future, especially now that the airlines are beginning to pay their crews more correctly. I apologize for the long response, but you put so much great effort into all of your videos, which i enjoy and look forward to every week, that I felt you deserved more than just a terse one sentence response that might be misconstrued. With Best Regards Lisa
contiguous US - 8 million sq km Europe - 10.5 sq km ( there is more to Europe than what's in the minds of the typical American tourist) Rail systems in Europe are ok within individual countries. Not so much for international travel.
@@jeffn8218 so shall we include Canada and Mexico? LoL No the point is, why would Air France have a large set of regional aircraft when their country is small. I always find it odd how Europeans don’t want to be lumped together unless it fits their argument.
@@jeffn8218 does that number include Greenland? Because I know it probably includes Iceland and Greenland is politically part of Europe even though it is geographically part of North America. A rather enormous chunk of Europe is also included in Eastern Russia and while I'm sure it's somewhat different from the days of the USSR I'd be willing to guess that air service in Russia is still significantly behind what is found in Western Europe or even the less populated western parts of the US. When you start throwing these numbers around you have to compare apples to apples.
@@jeffn8218 I have had no difficulty using rail for business travel across multiple international borders in Western EU. I cant speak for farther east. The worst I have experienced on rail Europe far exceeds our best which would be New England/northest corridor.
If it commercially makes sense to do what Petter is saying, then the frequency will not be a concern to the majors, as if they all follow suit, the passengers will not have a choice
Well if there were no split mainline & regional fleets, maybe there would be more direct flights between small airports. And THAT is probably where the market will be headed, if/when the regionals bite the dust.
@@danielmosey6203 There is always a choice because all airlines don’t have the same exact schedule, so people will book whatever is more convenient to them. An airline will happily add a cheap CRJ flight just to kill their competitor in a market.
Native Texan here: I used to LOVE flying in those turbojet "puddlejumpers" from small regional airports to larger airports. I thought it was much more fun that a 'boring' big jet. 🙂
Had a few years making frequent trips to the US and favourite part was the 1-2 hour regional connections in little twin turboprops like the A340. Love the sound, especially in rain.
The basis of competition in the US is often flight frequency. If you can fly smaller aircraft to a regional airport several times a day versus one large jet once a day, it will impact your market share significantly. Having a cheaper pilot salary scale doesn't hurt, but the main reason is to keep the feeder flights full so that the hubs can operate near capacity, especially if those are international hubs launching the highly profitable long-haul flights.
Good point, but one big reason for planes like the A220, is to enable flying between small airports that are far apart. So ultimately, folding the regionals into the mainline carrier could (?) lead to more point-to-point flights between smaller airports. Kinda like Southwest, but in a wider scale, network-wise.
In Euro you can just drive from region to region. It's the same reason for limited applications for public transportation. Canada & US are huge.There are a lot of regional aircrafts.
Absolutely correct! European airlines have far less domestic passengers to fly than the US because most countries have a main domestic carrier, but are small. In the US a carrier must fly people into and out of hubs that cover very large areas. As such, it takes a lot of frequency to many airports to keep those feeds going. I’m glad he used PIT as an example. There just wasn’t enough demand there to keep a hub going and airlines use a mix of mainline and express planes flying to keep the load factors up. There’s no sense in flying a 738 three times when there’s only a need for ~250 passengers, so they fly a 738 in the morning and then two CRJs in the afternoon/evening.
One of the big differences between US and Europe is that for the most part there is an efficient passenger rail network in Europe to feed the airports. There is poor rail feeder service in the US so the feeder service is by more frequent service to smaller (market not necessarily physical) airports.
It seems to be the case that the regionals here in the US mainly serve the purpose of connecting less-popular (not necessarily smaller) airports to central hubs, rather than providing service between small airports that can’t support larger aircraft. I live in Albuquerque, and even though we have an airport with 3 large, long runways and consistent wide-body cargo traffic, nearly every passenger flight is on a regional jet (aside from southwest’s 737s and Delta’s a320 connection to Atlanta). Seems to be true at other airports that aren’t major passenger hubs too.
FWIW 737s and A320s fly internationally between New Zealand and Australia, usually a 3 and a half hour plus flight. "Regional" planes in New Zealand add ATR72s and de Havilland Q300s flown by the national carrier to the jets and then even smaller planes flown by true regional air lines e.g. C208s
Also for carriers flying into another dominant carrier's hub. People residing in Houston may fly United to Dallas, while people residing in Dallas may fly American to Houston. They both want enough frequency so people don't choose the other airline based on schedule, so some of those planes will be regionals. They both also want to support their international operations from their home airports.
My US town of ~50k population has fairly new "regional" flights twice a day operated by Envoy. The are *definitely* feeder flights by American Airlines - going only between KSWO and KDFW. Gotta say they we *love* it. As a long-time business flyer, I have driven many, many miles and paid thousands of dollars for airport parking just to get between home and KOKC or KTUL. Now having a local connection to AA is completely awesome change.
"There is no worker shortage, there is only pay shortage" YES, thank you for bringing that up. Doesn't just apply to pilots and aircrews, but literally every industry ever. Teachers, service industry, even manufacturing.
@@lahodal you misspelled too: it's growth. Having greedy board members is another thing. Donella Meadows see that coming 50 years ago: put simply if it can no longer extend upward, it has to extend downward...
@@carlvincent12 Yes here nurses are holding patients hostage in a war on salary, A war where they have taken half time jobs in two hospitals to bypass the rules. Already earning allot more than equal jobs/educations. but opportunities like covid lead them down the path of blackmail. Why should a nurse earn more than a policeofficer, or a medical engineer with a far longer education and 20 years more exp.. Greed and entitlement is growing in the EU/west. I would rather be treated by a kind immigrant philippino nurse than a Danish that feel they are better than their job.
Having worked for a US mid-sized corporation for over 30 years, I found that expecting logic to be the reason for business decisions was almost never an expectation that became a reality, especially if $ were part of the decision (and $ were always part of the decision).
As someone who works as an aircraft dispatcher for CommuteAir, an airline you mentioned in this video, I could give some additional insight into this conversation. There are some additional factors that also effect our operations and why regional airlines won’t go away in the US anytime soon. Passengers in America want convenience, and regional airlines can provide this with higher frequency of flights. In addition, passengers want comfort in their regional flights and thus why props have mostly gone extinct in regional operations here, and also resulting in lower passengers density in the cabins with more legroom and wider seats. In addition the United States government offers indentures to smeller cities with Essential Services Flights which have to be at or below certain requirements, which by chance happen to be just slightly above the Scope Clauses for most US regionals. While regionals have been paying pilots and many other crew members better than ever, these rates are still well below mainline as the majors have had to increase wages as well. Honestly, the worker shortage at airlines will probably continue for the next couple of years, and will probably result in pay continuing to go up.
I'm a 32 year retired US major airline mechanic. When I first started the commuters were only turbo props and the regional aircraft were flown & maintained by the main line carriers. As the years went by the turbo props were taken out of service and the major airlines established their own wholly owned regional service. The reason is simple as the main line carriers pay their wholly owned subsidiary carriers less, and the aircraft don't burn as much fuel or pay as much in landing fees. If the US ever had dependable high speed rail service this would be a problem for regional airlines. FLY NAVY!!!
I worked for US Airways for 36 years. The first 24 years were in Cleveland, Ohio. We were a smaller mostly mainline station with some regional flights. After 9/11 airline traffic had dropped across the industry. In 2003 we were informed that our station was being turned into a regional station with no mainline flights. My options were to either transfer to a station with mainline flights or stay in Cleveland and go to work for the regional airline at a 50% pay cut. I packed my family up and transferred. After they announced the closure of the station US Airways sent in a group of people to explain our options and the process . They also sent in a VP to explain why our station was closing. He said that regional jets were more cost effective and the airline was planning on buying many more. I asked him what the plan was when the passengers returned to flying and all we had left were small regional jets. This genius's answer was "We don't expect the passengers to ever return in the numbers before 9/11." I often wonder what happened to that moron. I retired in 2016 from American Airlines.
Got that same "traffic will never return" trope in 2020 from our HQ. Fast forward to today and we are up the proverbial creek with labor & supply shortages. It's that kind of bean counting reactionary decision making to appease Wall Street that keeps the industry in a circle of chaos.
@mwilk - let's look at it from the other perspective. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we knew who the bad guy was. We spent tons of money, rewrote procedues, upgraded security, etc. Turned air travel inside out in an effort to keep people safe AND to ensure they felt safe. It is a basic idea: if people were using a thing at rate X before it broke, they will return to generally the same use rate when it is repaired. But that didn't happen. I remember the predictions of "air travel should be back to previous levels by the 3rd qtr 2002". Nope. Nor 3rd qtr 2003. It was almost 2005 before passenger numbers returned to pre-2001 levels; and it took a major shift downward in ticket fares to get people moving. So much of a shift down, that it was the 2007 time frame before the airlines' revenue returned to pre-2001 levels - just in time for the 2008 recession. Which took revenues to the pre 9/11 range again. So, it is 2003. Ticket sales have been abysmal since 9/11 despite all the safety measures. Business travel that had been "essential" only two years before had vanished. Companies are promoting home offices and telecommuting as the way forward. And THEN we invaded Iraq. All the color coded risk level stuff - just the thing to put people in the flying mood. Not. It looked really bleak.
@@lisanadinebaker5179 You can blame the TSA for making flying miserable. No wonder the Flying numbers took years to go back up. There was no upgraded security. It's just a bunch of theatrics. TSA agents are bunch on inept security guard rejects, who shouldn't be qualified to hold a flashlight.
In Canada, regional 'Air Canada Jazz' flies 3 hours route such as Vancouver-Chicago, or Calgary-Chicago, or Edmonton-San Francisco. It was always told that the pay at Jazz is much lower than at mainline Air Canada, and moving flights to Jazz is in part a way to keep labour costs down.
The 175, which has 76 seats is far more popular with flight crews and passengers. The 50 seaters are disappearing, partly because the 175 is so popular, and partly because they can go to most places the 50 seaters go. Analysing an entire industry based on two planes out of thousands is grossly inaccurate. The 190s aren’t as efficient at the mailine level and they’re disappearing. As for rate increases, it’s about time. And now the mainlines are in contract negotiations, and after the next year or two they’ll be making more too. So the regionals aren’t going anywhere. BTW, there are regional pilots now making more money than some of their mainline counterparts.
We had a lot of ATRs in the US in the regional fleet. Then the whole 'ice up and fall out of the sky' issue happened and people started to not feel comfortable on turboprops.
An accident usually doesn´t sort out a whole type of aircrafts if there´s no other issue supporting their out-fleeting. And yes, the ATR are known since that accident to be sensible for icing - but there were and are other types of Turboprops in the market. So there´s more behind it.
You still need to give passengers more options in feeder airlines, if a regional cuts by half its flights it’s extremely difficult to make decent connections
The biggest issue with Breeze is that they’re trying to grow with infrequent services. I don’t care how cheap you claim to be if I have to plan my vacation around a twice weekly flight. Until they get up to daily on their routes, I’m going to wait and see.
@@ljthirtyfiver Allegiant has more of a niche than Breeze does. Allegiant enters really small markets and induce demand by offering cheap direct flights to popular leisure destinations like Orlando or Vegas. Breeze also starts new point-to-point routes, but they're often between 2 mid-sized airports, and then they have to try to attract demand to more "off-the-beaten-path" destinations like Charleston or Norfolk. They also add and cut routes so fast it's hard to keep up with what they're offering and when.
My wife travels a lot for work and we deliberately chose to live in a city with a big regional airport rather than a major hub. She has many more flight choices from here than she might at a major hub airport. With her preferred airline, there are 5 hubs she can connect through to get to her various destinations. She has never missed a meeting or appointment due to weather or equipment, while some of her major hub based colleagues have. Also, drop off or parking, car rental, check in and security are much easier than at a major hub. Yes, there is connection time added, but the ease of use of our home airport makes up for the connections.
@BK Binj - having worked high travel jobs for the majority of my career, some to the tune of 80% on the road, I also evolved to using this strategy, both for my home Port and chosen destination airports. Logan or Providence? No brainer - PVD everytime. Stress minimization has a value.
I work for a major US carrier as a mechanic. Delta and American pilots recently turned down big pay raises and voted to strike. United offered 18% pay raises over the next 15 months. They turned it down with a 94% no vote. Now that the majors are profitable again after 2 years they want big pay raises. Pilots have very strong unions and stick together. They get what they want. I doubt that a strike will be allowed, there hasn't been one at a major carrier since northwest in the late 90's. They just tell them to keep negotiating. With the current pilots shortage they hold all the cards. There also is a mechanic shortage the likes of which I haven't seen in my 24 years of employment. We also have some leverage come contract time. So to with all work groups. Flying is going to get and stay more expensive.
One thing that I think is relevant here is that (at least in the US) the major carriers' primary revenue source is not aircraft operations. They're basically banks. The airline operations are essentially rebate programs for their credit cards and loyalty programs. They need to offer whatever those customers want to keep them using their credit cards. If the miles I earn on my credit cards are not convenient to redeem, I'll find a different reward program.
Good video overall, but you're overlooking a key piece: Southwest. You repeatedly pointed out that regional partner airlines don't fly to smaller airports as much as their European equivalents do. That is because Southwest focuses on these smaller regional flights. And it has a very successful business model by focusing on shorter flights between smaller airports in smaller planes.
Southwest flies anything between 40 min to 5 hour+ flights. Flights are almost always full. All 737s. It can be done and they’ve proved it. They run an efficient model.
I am looking at SkyWest’s route map. They do routes for the big four (you left out Alaska Air) major US airlines. Most of the routes are from a hub to a small airport. GoJet also flies between hubs and a lot of small airports, but are only working with one major. Endeavor does the same with Delta. The US does not have the rail network that Europe has. Look at the combined route maps of Skywest, GoJet, and Endeavor to see how many more small airports are served by air here that would be served by rail in Europe. I have been flying long enough that I have seen some of these regional airlines switch between which major they worked with or new regional become the airline serving the route for the major.
Skywest is able to cover more airlines (UA, AA, DL, AS) because they're an independent regional airline (the largest in the world actually). I believe most, if not all, the other regional airlines are owned (wholly and in part) by the previous mentioned airlines.
I've noticed this year that a lot of routes i fly that used to be CRJ-700 and/or CRJ-900, are now being serviced by 737's a lot of the time. And i was told by a pilot (for Delta airlines) that it was because of the pilot shortage. They don't have enough pilots for the flight deck positions they have.
It’s kinda complicated in America. Everyone flies from pretty much everywhere over here. We have so many airports. Even smaller “cities” have airports and airlines. Like where I live near Knoxville, TN, our airport basically serves just to get you to a bigger airport for your main flight. We do have some direct flights to big cities now (like to Las Vegas), but even then it’s limited to a couple of times a week, and doesn’t always schedule for someone’s needs. Most of the fleet at McGhee Tyson are smaller regional jets, for that reason. We don’t have 300 people wanting to fly to Chicago twice a week, but certainly might have 70 per day wanting to make that flight
The regional airlines you mentioned in Scandinavia remind me of the daily milk run route that Alaska does from Seattle to Anchorage via the Southern Alaska Inner Passage. Which is both to serve small Alaskan town for cargo shipments and residents getting to Anchorage, Juneau, or the lower 48.
Probably this is no coincidence: Both - Norway and Sweden - are large in size but only sparsely populated with only a few larger cities. The northern parts of the Countries are Arctic Regions with very long and very harsh winters. Both Countries have an Airline doing all the necessary stuff in this remote areas and connecting them with the few larger cities: Wideroe in Norway and Bra in Sweden.
Our regional airline here in Scotland is thankfully pretty simple, run by Logan Air, they use turbo props to fly from my northern city, Aberdeen, to the islands, so Orkney and Shetland. On Orkney there’s a very small airline that goes from island to island where one of those flights is a 2 minute flight and the craft doesn’t go above 1,000 feet (mostly used by locals who need to travel between islands, and plane enthusiasts!). The small Orkney craft is essentially treated like a bus, it’s pretty cheap (I could get tickets from £10-£15) and it’s a LOT faster than waiting for a small ferry. Apparently it’s also the Guinness World Record for the shortest flight in the world! So over here they’re desperately needed to connect the islands to mainland Scotland, especially Orkney, Shetland, the Hebredian Islands, there’s even a regular small craft that takes pregnant women to Aberdeen’s hospital to give birth (Gama Aviation), and there’s even smaller locations that are subsidised by our government because they’re isolated communities (Tiree, Barra, Campbeltown) because they just aren’t financially viable by themselves but Scottish government recognises they’re needed services, also run by Logan Air. There aren’t insane waits tho, it’s a regular service to be relied on, and the flights don’t generally last more than 1 hour unless there’s some issue (mechanical, weather, weather mostly being the issue because hey, this is Scotland!). It’s mostly the ATR-72 used here, the Orcadian small craft is a lovely “aerodynamic brick” (as described by her pilot!) the BN-2! So there’s some random regional aircraft facts for northern Scotland/Scottish islands, our regional airline is seen as a super important lifeline and used regularly by the oil industry, there’s multiple flights to/from Sumburgh (Shetland) every day, get to see them all the time from my house as I’m very close to the flight path!
These days they’re flying more ERJs, rescued from FlyBMI. And GAMA provide all of the flight services for the Scottish Ambulance Service, typically in the SAS colours, but occasionally in unmarked relief planes when the core aircraft are unavailable
Eyyy, Scottish people in the house! Unfortunately, I'm boring. I just see Easyjet, Aer Lingus and the occasional United flight landing RWY 24 at Edinburgh through my kitchen window.
I believe the Shetland flights are also subsidised by the local authorities. The UK government also fund flights between London city and Dundee, by Logan air.
As someone who’s worked their way through regionals to work for a major US airline, I appreciate this video. It’s often hard to explain all these issues when asked. You’ve done a great job condensing these issues into a digestible video. Keep making great content!
Here in Dallas Fort Worth we had the Wright amendment which was a law passed to prevent Southwest from competing against the big boys. It also was to protect DFW airport from losing income to Love Field. That kept them regional, but the law has expired. I’m pretty sure Southwest still doesn’t fly out of DFW. For a while, the big three were buying up gates at Love Field to keep Southwest from expanding. They also have a strong Lobby to prevent high speed rail from DFW to Houston.
Southwest is expected to start occupying DFW in 2024. The contract states they have to operate only out of love field until 2024. So they can start buying gates at DFW if they wanted (and they might)
I don’t think the regional airlines are dying, but they’re definitely being regrouped. There’s a lot of small airports, especially in Texas, that see regional service to DFW. A lot of these locations can’t sustain service and are losing service all together.
services to EAS airports are definitely going through an adjustment period. My airline cut travel to at least 29 EAS cities this year, mainly due to not having enough pilots.
I think it’s a problem of not having aircraft that can serve them any more. Not one of the aircraft that served the fields in my state (save the three majors) are manufactured any more, nor is any airline still flying them. Southern is stepping in, and it’s a godsend, but they’re still working out the kinks. Seems also that the milkrun flights are gone, not sure why.
Hey @Mentour Now! One of the big factors of having regional airlines is frequency of flights and that was discussed by many in the comments. Another reason I haven’t seen mention is the legal and logistic isolation from the big three businesses. You mentioned fleet sizes and that is a big factor that drives their existence. For example, Delta doesn’t want to create the infrastructure required to house, maintain, and operate all fo those regional jets. Most importantly it doesn’t want to have the legal and regulatory liability of operating them. There are several excellent videos documenting the controversy of “are regional airlines actually different companies?” This was highlighted as a part of the Colgan Air tragedy and the accompanying lawsuits levied by the victims families. For now, Delta, United, and American Airlines are allowed to reap the full business benefits of these smaller regional airlines within assuming any financial, logistical, legal, or regulatory liability. It’s a huge win for the big 3 that they continue to exist. With jets like the CSeries/A220 emerging as a class of airplane that is smaller, regional size but has the efficiency to fly farther point to point route, it will be interesting to see if the big three start operating more direct flights because the economics start to make sense with those planes. Consumers pay more for direct flights and want a direct flight but not too much. The CSeries/A220 and future similar aircraft could make the need/shift away from regional operators possible.
As an American, I realize the model used by Most airlines here is pretty strange (my preferred domestic carrier SWA is the exception). But Europe with its wet leases and naked planes and business class being 3 economy seats with a table over the middle seat, is pretty strange to me. Once I flew a LOT codeshare from WAW-STR that had a long tarmac delay. The pilots and cabin crew made all the announcements in English (which was fine for me) but none of them understood any Polish or German. As it turns out their first language was Spanish.
You mention Miami and Charleston as part of a single regional route. That's 788km. From Paris CDG, that would get you to anywhere in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the vast majority of Germany, the whole of England and Wales (but not Scotland), and much of northern Italy, plus parts of Austria and Czechia, and enough of Ireland to include Dublin, and the very north of Spain (maybe enough to include Barcelona and Pamplona). Would that be a regional flight in Europe?
I’m a Republic Flight Attendant and I actually worked ON that airplane 422 on the day you mentioned, Oct 20! Cool! I’m in Pittsburgh. I’m about to hit 22 years seniority. I hope my airline is around a long time, but for selfish reasons, at least 20 more years, til I can retire, that is. My pilots all just got a huge raise. Some of our seniors pilots have been scaring me lately with predictions exactly to the point of this video. I hope I don’t lose my job. :( Thanks for this video. You make perfect sense, unfortunately for me, and my colleagues.
I work for a regional airline (piedmont airlines) based in the USA, operating regional routes for American Airlines. The demand is huge and flights are in extremely high demand. Regional airlines(PSA, piedmont, mesa) 😮were responsible for keeping the airlines in business during the pandemic. No one expected for the demand to shoot through the roof like it did. We can’t keep enough pilots staffed to support all these routes. They’re giving great bonuses right now for pilots looking for a career.
Things sure have changed. One of my first regional flights was out of somewhere in South Carolina 45 years ago. The guy at the check in counter loaded the luggage, then was the pilot. I was the last passenger on, and all the seats were full, so I ended up sitting in the front right seat. The pilot asked me not to touch any of the instruments.
I agree with the Flight Frequency argument. I take assignments with my company that require travel to numerous cities about a 1 or 2 hour flight away. Fewer flights /choices mean more overnights, and a much higher cost. Plus the added time for me, and time away from my home and family, which is the most valuable commodity of all.
There´re in fact two very different systems in Europe and in the US: The relevant US Carrier are Commuter Airlines, not Regional Airlines. They´ve a different role in different Business Models. The European Model is indeed that the relevant Carrier are operating as Regional Airlines either in flying routes on which are not enough customers to fill a Boeing or an Airbus or in flying routes to minor airports to connect them. So in Europe either the Major Carrier are owning their Regional Airlines as part of their Group (Lufthansa => Lufthansa Cityline and Air Dolomiti; KLM => KLM Cityhopper; Air France => Air France Hop; British Airways => BA Cityflyer; TAP Air Portugal => Portugallia; Finnair => NORRA; Aegean Airlines => Olympic Air) or they´re really independent Airlines operating on their own risk (Bra in Sweden; Wideroe in Norway; Loganair in the UK; Binter and Canarias Airlines on the Canary Islands in Spain; Amelia International and Chalair in France; Sprintair in Poland - Helvetic Airways in Switzerland is a mixed Regional Airline, being independent but operating with one half of their fleet for Swiss, with the other half on their own risk). Only in two cases there´re "independent" Regional Airlines operating for a Major Carrier: SAS (Scandinavia) => Cityjet (Ireland) and Xfly (Estonia); Iberia => Air Nostrum (both from Spain). But both cases are still Regional Airlines in the European sense. Therefore they own a wide range of Aircrafts, depending on their specific and often very different operations, different fleet policies and of course financial backgrounds: Lufthansa Cityline A 319-100, E 190 and CRJ 900; Air Dolomiti E 195; KLM Cityhopper E 175 (yes!), E 190 and E 195-E2; Air France Hop E 170 (yes!), E 190 and CRJ 1000; BA Cityflyer E 190; Portugallia E 190 and E 195; NORRA E 190 and ATR 72; Olympic Air ATR 42, ATR 72, Dash 8-100 and Dash 8-400; Bra ATR 72; Wideroe E 190E-2, Dash 8-100, Dash 8-200, Dash 8-300 and Dash 8-400; Loganair ERJ 135, ERJ 145, ATR 42, ATR 72, Saab 340, Twin Otter and even Britten-Norman Islander; Binter E 195E-2 and ATR 72; Canarias ATR 72; Amelia A 319-100, ERJ 135, ERJ 145, ATR 42, ATR 72 and Beechcraft 1900C; Chalair ATR 42 and ATR 72; Sprintair ATR 72 and Saab 340; Helvetic E 190, E 190-E2 and E 195 -E2; Cityjet CRJ 900; Xfly CRJ 900 and ATR 72; Air Nostrum CRJ 1000, CRJ 200 and ATR 72. That´s a whole other story in the US and I doubt the Commuter System will disappear there in the foreseeable Future.
Not sure if this has been pointed out, but in comparing US airlines to airlines in other countries, airlines in other countries are often subsidized by the governments of those countries. In the US, they are not. They are a business, needing to turn a profit.
You make some good points about our regional airlines, but comparing European airlines to US airlines is quite difficult since all of Europe would fit in a small corner of the US.
17:51 "Breeze Airways... are the only US airline with E-190s and E-195s." Actually one other airline has E-190s - JetBlue operates 60 of them. JetBlue has begun replacing their E-190s with A220s, and anticipates the entire fleet will have been replaced with A220s by 2025. The A220 has markedly better fuel economy - despite having 40 more seats than the E-190, it uses less fuel.
Well Petter says "the only US airline with E-190s AND E-195s"... which is correct. And strictly-speaking, Breeze would quite like to have only E-195s, but couldn't find enough of them, so Petter's point of maximizing regional jet size, stands.
My son is midway through his training to become a commercial pilot at a flight school in Utah. This video had a lot of interesting information I was unaware of, so I passed it on to him. Love your videos!!
Good video... but I'm not sure about that. I fly from a small regional airport (COU) typically on Embraer 175s... with flights are typically full or almost full. Schedules are very accommodating - with flights in and out from 6 AM, 9 AM, 5 PM and 9 PM... going to Chicago, Dallas, and Denver. A 737 would either be underutilized or the flights would be limited to just once or twice a day... greatly diminishing its usefulness for frequent business flyers. I love flying from my regional... it's convenient, parking is free, very little wait time, and I really like the 2-by-2 seating of the Embraers! So I hope you're wrong... 🙂
JetBlue avoided this scope trap by not having regional contract carriers (except for Cape Air flying Cessna 402s in a few niche markets). They bought E-190s to operate their entire own system with their own equipment.
The regionals that I'm used to here in the U.S. are often at airports that could support heavier aircraft, but don't due to economics. Much of that is based on the percentage of fill that a plane has; if it's too empty, flights get cancelled here. I'm not certain, but I suspect that there are laws on the books in Europe that doesn't allow for cancelling flights as easily as they do in the U.S., which is why it might have a different result.
Yeah, european companies and foreign ones that depart from Europe have to pay the customers and in some cases offer food and a place to stay if flights are delayed for more than a few hours (I think 2 or 3), and if the flight is cancelled (on top of the free ticket on a different flight or the money back).
They don’t cancel them because they don’t fly to them. European airlines only serve main cities. Trains then serve the outliers. Europe has a much higher population density.
@@h-0058 I wish I, here in the US would get money back if my flights were delayed. Sometime can't even get peanuts without paying and arm and a leg. Also, I think like people have been mentioning in previous posts, US is accustomed to flying and don't have the rail infrastructure that make trains a viable competitor to 'cheap' flights.
@@h-0058 I wish I, here in the US would get money back if my flights were delayed. Sometime can't even get peanuts without paying and arm and a leg. Also, I think like people have been mentioning in previous posts, US is accustomed to flying and don't have the rail infrastructure that make trains a viable competitor to 'cheap' flights.
Actually, here in the US we have the Essential Air Service program that was part of the airline deregulation act that passed in 1978. The federal government has a number of routes that no passengers or airlines would ever expect to have a use for airline travel, but Congress makes the FAA put the routes out for bids and the lowest bidder gets to fly a scheduled service according to the contract requirements without caring if there is a single passenger on board. The government is paying enough to provide the service and a profit on these routes knowing that most flights don't have any paying passengers.
So, the issue in the US is unions. It is airline unions that have essentially caused the US to shoot themselves in the foot. Not surprising. Unions are self-serving. The same thing is playing out with automakers. I bet the 1500-hour rule came from these unions who keep insisting that there is no "shortage of pilots", just a shortage of pay. Once the regional airlines go, the US won't need as many pilots, making the remaining pilots more valuable. The result of this is that a lot of people (in small towns away from major airports) will lack air-service and those who still have it will have to pay more for it as costs go up significantly for airlines.
I think you are missing one key thing in your equation. The regional airport in my area is 50% passenger/50% cargo. We have two key cargo deployments here, pharmaceutical and air feeder service for major package express integrators. The airport is quite a busy place despite it being small.
You said you would get back to the topic of frequencies but didn't really (aside from the issue of total fuel burn). It's quite possible that LGA-PIT has a demand of 225 passengers a day, but spread out over the course of the day (e.g. business passengers in the morning and evening, and leisure travelers during the midday). The only way to capture all of this demand is by flying a 76-seater E175 three times a day. You could put an A321 on the route and only fly once, but you wouldn't be able to fill 225 seats, as half your business passengers and a chunk of leisure travelers would refuse to fly at a time inconvenient to them.
The video was short sighted on a number of factors. Lisa Nadine Baker pointed out a number of factors where there is no comparison between the US and European carriers. The biggest reason why the regionals have flourished is the shortsightedness of the major airline pilot unions allowing 76 seat jet to be flown by the regionals (they should have just said 50 was the limit). With the majors being as penny pinching as they are (they will try to save a dime even though it costs them a dollar in the long term) there will always be a regional airlines. Another topic brought up is you can put one 737 on a route instead of three regional jets. Sure you can, but you will not provide the frequency of flights that the public demands. So instead of a couple mainline flights a day you will have one mainline and three regional flights a day. Next, they are throwing money at regional pilots (50% raises) to attract new people but they have also done that because they are trying to make them stay a little longer. Now a first office can make 100k for a year and then go to captain where he/she will make 150k (plus generous bonuses). They may say a little longer because a jump to the major comes with a large pay cut (first year pay at a major is not great). The biggest factor is again pay, which you alluded to. But you fail to recognize that all the regionals have gotten their massive pay increases (50%+). But next comes the major pay increases for the major airlines. All the major airlines are up for new contracts (Southwest, United, American, Delta). When they do come you will probably see raises of +15%. This will again widen the gap between major and regional pay. So with that gap you will always see the majors wanting regional airlines to stick around because they are cheaper.
As a passenger, i prefer lots of small flights a day rather than 1 bigger flight because i most likely will be home much sooner. Waiting 6 hours at the Las Vegas airport is horrendous.
The congestion all those small flights create doesn't matter until bad weather effects ripple through the whole system and you end up sitting on a plane for hours during a ground stop.
@Alex Wyler - waiting six hours in any airport is horrendous, but I think I would prefer LV to Green Bay. There has to at least be more than two places to eat in LV.
I understand your perspective Mentour. I grew up on farm and originally from a small town in rural Southwest Minnesota. I currently live and work in Denver, CO. I am extremely lucky to be able to fly from DIA (DEN) Denver International Airport into ATY or Watertown Regional Airport. SkyWest used to provide EAS (Essential Air Service) into Watertown from DIA via United Branding. The contract recently was then awarded to Denver Air Connection (Headquartered right across Arapahoe Road at Centennial Airport from where I work at US. Foods) I cherish the EAS service provided for passengers flying from DIA into Watertown, SD. The farm I grew up on which is in the middle of nowhere is only a half hour from Watertown, SD or ATY. It is absolutely amazing that I can get from Denver to the middle of nowhere USA in an hour. I feel I am very fortunate and will ALWAYS advocate EAS into Watertown, SD. Also a couple of fun facts: ATY just built a brand new terminal that is now open. Barack Obama when he was President of the United States visited Watertown, SD not once, but twice during his presidency, which is very astonishing. They flew a modified Boeing 757 into this airport as Air Force one. Watertown, SD is a very rural town and is considered a very small town by major city standards. I cannot say enough great things about Denver Air Connection and ATY for keeping EAS. Normally what would be a 12 hour drive, I can arrive home to visit my family and hometown within an hour. I state all of this as each EAS situation is very circumstantial and can have vast difference in model from route to route in the United States. Currently Denver Air Connection uses Embraer 145 50 seat jets from DIA into ATY. It is also very cool to work at US. Foods in Centennial and see these very same jets land at their home base for maintenance at APA in Centennial. I share all this, as this is a very specific example of a very small regional airline in the United States thriving while connecting very rural America to major United States Airports. Love your videos Mentour and wanted to shed some light on my experience flying recently in the United States using a very small regional airline.
I used to be a Comair/Delta Connection regional airline employee and we were a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta Airlines. Your take is credible, however, there is also an aspect you didn't cover...frequency. The US market demands frequency over plane size. Yes, you can put an A321 in place of 3 EMB175s, thus savings the additional crew, fuel, etc...but at the expense of the demand by the pax demand to have (sometimes) hourly flights between local airports and hubs...or point to point flights. For example, at my local airport, we have 4-5 rotations to the various hubs for the Legacy3 as well as our RONs throughout the day. Yeah, you could cut that in half and use A321s or 757s, but we get regionals and mainline combinations depending on the legacy carrier. Then add in the other rotations to places like DCA and EWR as well, plus WN, G4 and F9 service as well. So it is about frequency that, in many cases dictates the multiple trips between hub/outstation daily. And the regional feed allows for the 76 seats and fewer during the hours that don't require 150+ seats, but pax still demand the convenience of timing of flights.
@D Peters - hey, glad to know there are still some Comair folks around! We miss you guys here in the Tristate. I loved that little airline - bounced all over the eastern part of the country, never having to deal with the hassles of a mega airport. I hope you were able to land a good position elsewhere.
I guess I'm repeating what others are saying. My airport is Portland International Jetport, PWM. I remember when regionals started and it was to provide more flights per day to like Boston, Newy Your, Philly, etc. These were supposed to help business travelers to get to meeting and back home sooner. They also allowed us to get to a major hub faster and cheaper.
Indeed. The European model are indeed Regional Airlines = flying routes on which not enough customers are to fill a Boeing or an Airbus - or connecting minor airports to the bigger net. So many Major Carrier are owning their Regional Airlines as part of their Group: Lufthansa => Lufthansa Cityline and Air Dolomiti; KLM => KLM Cityhopper; Air France => Air France Hop; British Airways => BA Cityflyer; TAP Air Portugal => Portugallia; Aer Lingus => Aer Lingus Express; Finnair => NORRA; Aegean Airlines => Olympic Air. Only two Major Carrier are using the system to operate with "independent" Regional Airlines in this function: SAS (Scandinavia) with Cityjet (from Ireland) and Xfly (from Estonia) and Iberia with Air Nostrum (both in Spain). And there´re a couple of really independent Regional Airlines in Europe as Petter mentioned, doing there business on their own risk without supporting a Major Carrier: Bra in Sweden, Wideroe in Norway, Binter on the Canary Islands in Spain, Loganair in the UK, Amelia International and Chalair in France; Sprintair in Poland. Helvetic Airways in Switzerland is a mixed Regional Airline, being independent while doing with the half of their fleet Regional Services for Swiss and with the other half on their own risk. That´s indeed a whole other system as the Commuter Airlines in the US! And I doubt that it will disappear.
A part you miss is business travel drives these routes. Saying 2-3 per day could be one larger aircraft while true doesn’t meet their customer needs. In the US business travel mostly doesn’t include travel days especially for for shorter hauls. Not having a morning and evening option (and with the travelers preferred airline) ruins the model Additionally they augment RJs midday. AA may use an RJ midday for two PHL to BOS and mainline for the numerous morning and evening flights. Frequency is a huge factor you miss. Honestly the work travel dynamic is less intense for same day travel in Europe (not none existent but not as demand driven)
As others have said, a big part of going more often with fewer people is that provide a more convenient schedule, and schedule is a big factor in choosing one airline over another. I think this model will continue for some time, but hopefully the pay gap is addressed.
One thing that you’re missing is stocks. My husband works for a regional carrier. All 3 of the legacy carriers own stock in his company. Not small percentages either. SO even though they’re paying another airline to operate these flights, they’re still getting money from it. Essentially giving themself a discount from the agreed upon price per flight.
You got a lot wrong... A) 86,000 pounds is 43 tons. Not 39. B) we make great money now at regionals. My airline starts fos at 110 usd/hr. As a captain I make 200.
Feels like you've looked into the dominant east coast airlines and sort of bizarrely ignored the other half of the country? Western states tend to be more sparsely populated and have regional airline models more akin to the European style described. Horizon Air (regional for Alaska Air) even runs a whole fleet of turboprops. Alaskan regional air travel is such a complicated mess of tiny airports and puddle jumpers there's been at least one entire TV series about it. And Hawaii has its own complex thing going on with inter-island travel. Overall the video is an interesting look at one part of the US but definitely gives off serious "European doesn't quite grasp how big the US is" vibe. A followup about western regional models (and perhaps how they intersect with the more east-biased "big three", since that's often an interesting mess) would be appreciated. If only to make it feel less silly that you didn't mention Alaska a single time when discussing US regional air travel. You know the capital city of Alaska can only be accessed by air or boat, right?
Displays a fundamental misunderstanding of how the US air transportation market developed since the 1970s, very differently than ROW, from 9-seat piston-powered independent commuters to selective interline, to 19 to 30-seat turboprop revenue sharing, to 76-seat EJET Capacity Purchase Agreements proffered by mainline carriers under contractual scope limits, yet operating more than half of domestic departures to both major and smaller cities, carrying higher fare business passengers locally and to and from connecting hubs, on lower trip cost equipment, utilizing labor arbitrage for as long as that lasted, now relying on lower trip costs.
Great video. Living here I see it very differently. I believe the planes you chose to monitor was a small sample and maybe not representative of the majority of the regional jets patterns and the airport sizes they fly into. A lot of smaller cities rely on these regional jets to get to bigger hubs. Some places might be 4-8 hour drives to a big hub. These jets fill the gap and in my experience are always full. Not to mention the gating at the smaller airports would cost a fortune to get them equipped to handle a bigger plane.
And the reason that the major airlines don’t just fly smaller jets to those places are because they’ve realized that they can rip off pilots by this artificial division. Hopefully, this scam is coming to an end.
I appreciate your time that it took to make this video..... I can firmly attests that it would seem like a very unusual environment here in the US in regard to air travel.... just a few key points (from someone who's been doing this many years :) ) 1) Regional airlines are not "Controlled" by the mainlines.... they BID for contract routes that the Mainlines simply don't want to use their own equipment to fly - this means that if Mesa (for example) bids on a contract route and states they can operate the route for AA (American Airlines) for $100 per person, and AA wants the route covered with the lowest bidder who in this case would be Mesa, then Mesa would most likely get the route for a specified amount of years or based on performance matrix ..... because Mesa does not sell directly to the AA Customer, AA will then decide on the ticket price, taking into account the bid package from Mesa, and then determine a fare to charge, of which $100 is passed onto Mesa... The mainline and Regional also have agreed upon "performance practices" that usually are dictated in a contract of operation at the time the route bid is awarded. 2) All Regional carriers compete with each other in this "bidding of routes". They are also partly responsible for bidding and contracting for gate space, bases for operations, maintenance, etc. Having a Regional do this saves Mainline Carriers Millions of dollars a year for NOT having to deal with such things as they already have their own network established with the more economical aircraft (as you mentioned in your video) 3) Regional pay - Mesa in 2019 would start a newly hired First Officer at $36 per hour.... with a 76 hour per month guarantee.... as of a few months ago, that number is now $100 per hour..... yeah way more than 50% increase - this is due mostly to trying to attract helicopter pilots who are looking to transition from Rotorcraft to Fixed wing flying as well as Part 135 Pilots who also might want to consider moving into a Part 121 Carrier. 4) because a 1500 hour Cessna pilot would qualify to obtain their ATP MEL License in the US (Airline Transport Pilot Multi-Engine Land) - only Part 121 carriers with approved training programs can "Train and Test the pilot candidate for the ATP MEL" - the cost for this was low and the process quick for the Regional Carriers to get FAA approval for these programs... therefore, new pilots who want their ATP MEL license to operate in the US will most always have to go through a Regional carrier to obtain this. This was something that the airlines lobbies our law makers in 2011 and 2012, and in 2014 the amended rules were implemented by the FAA. 5) Every Mainline is represented by various unions..... American Airlines has the Allied Pilots Association, where as Envoy (owned by American) has ALPA (Airline Pilots Association) - nether of these groups intend to merge, and rightfully so mostly due to the Scope Clause that you very clearly explained. Mainline pilots want to feel like their jobs are protected, and it can take years to earn the spot or obtain employment with a Mainline because of the strict criteria that the Unions have help to establish. 6) Regional Airlines have been "upgrading" (or a better term would be "migrating") to the E-175 based on customer satisfaction surveys - the traveling US customer base prefers a aircraft that is a bit larger than the Q400 (and even the CRJ 900) and looks for "comfort" features that the E-175 in the 76 seat configuration provides.... yes the regional could certainly go to E-190's, but would really take the hit for not being able to outfit them with 90 or more seats to make the plane profitable.... also some regional airlines have hardware acquisition agreements in place with the mainlines, where the mainline will purchase an aircraft (such as an E-175) and then lease it to a Regional for operations. I agree that the term "Regional" is really no longer one that applies here, but to indicate that the Regionals that are still in operation today (Envoy, PSA, Piedmont, Skywest, Republic, Air Wisconsin) could potentially be in danger of no longer existing just doesn't seem to be the case..... during the pandemic, we did see a few carriers fold, and those routes were quickly taken by other carriers.... but this "folding" was purely of financial means.... something you also addressed in your video. Having the regional airlines "look" like they are part of the Mainline operation is also key to the customer, who in many ways is already fed up with the hassles that air travel can impose... there is a aire of convenience to purchasing a round trip ticket on AA.COM knowing the whole route is serviced by AA or an affiliate.... Breeze is going to have an up hill battle to win over customers in that fashion as many US Travelers who reside in smaller communities serviced by "what looks to be AMERICAN OR UNITED" and are traveling from say Austin TX to New York City, NY, won't want to have to check in for a flight, go through security, get the gate, board the plane, get to DFW, go out to baggage claim, check in to a different carrier's flight, go through security (again), and then get to the gate just to head to NYC.... Breeze and the network they will provide would most likely be more a competitor to the likes of Southwest, Jet Suite X, and XO Jet. overall some great content.... thank you for sharing your thoughts!
I work in the operations department for a Regional Airline in Europe, Blue islands, we currently have a fleet of 5 ATR72-500. As much as we are looking as expanding our fleet and modernising it. We find the ATR are perfect for what we need around the UK and Europe
One other thing to consider is that 1 flight a day to a destination vs 2-3 is less convenient both for flight connections and for day businesses trips. Hence flights will sell better if there is higher frequency on a smaller aircraft.
The US congressmen/congresswomen need those votes from small towns. It's like "Hey look I got this airline to service your small town. Can I have your vote? You won't be inconvenced by taking a slow ass bus ride to an airport far away."
I don’t live in the US but Higher frequency is sometimes nice because if there is a missed connection etc ... and it offers more options for connections. That is also likely why Cathay Pacific used to operate 5 777s with some flights leaving 1hr after another, and around 20 flights to Beijing per day in 320/330s.
American has three wholly owned regional carriers: Envoy, Piedmont, and PSA. Republic, SkyWest, and Mesa Airlines are contracted out by American to fly routes the wholly owned doesn’t fly. Those three are not owned by American.
I used to fly on a small Embraer “United Express” from Modesto to San Francisco, and then on to a bigger plane from San Francisco to wherever. The flight from Modesto to SF took 15-20 minutes. The drive from Modesto to SF took… depending on traffic, which is always horrible, 2.5-3 h. I loved that short flight in the small plane, (maybe 50 seats or thereabouts), you always got such good views, since the smaller plane was flying much lower than the big jets. It was very noisy, it had propellers. But hey, it saved time and traffic headaches. One year they suddenly stopped the service from the Modesto Airport, it was some years before the pandemic. That was a sad day for me. Back into the road traffic I went! Yes, somebody here mentioned the smaller plane is more fun, and that’s often the case. You really feel like you’re flying. In a big jet you often don’t even feel like you’re in the air, if you didn’t see clouds you might just think you’re on a train. That’s probably just fine with most passengers, but I always enjoy a bit of rocking and rolling!
I may or may not have flown one of those tail numbers you stated probably 100 times. Awesome coverage! Amazing grasp on scope clauses and their potential harmful effects that many here are unable to explain so easily.
Well.. legacy airlines operate hub to hub flights. As you already know these hub airports are already at their full capacity. In other words, it is impossible to increase flight numbers at these hub airports. That’s why multiple operations from midsize airports to hub airports are still existing. Therefore, legacy airlines could divide the passenger demands effectively. By doing so, the each legacy airlines can tie their passengers within their operation networks. Even though this strategy would cost more than operating one big aircraft, in a bigger pictures, the legacy airlines get more benefits from this type of operations. Also regional airline companies are still profitable. So at this point, I don’t think regional airlines will be disappeared anytime soon in the US.
Mainline carriers got addicted to the low cost of regional airlines because the labor was cheap. Regional pilots aren't exactly cheap anymore. When I started at a regional the average starting pay was $18 an hour and competition to get hired was pretty fierce. Now if you have a pilots license and a pulse you can easily get $100 an hour as a 1st year FO with some companies practically BEGGING you to come work for them. The regional model is broken, but it is undergoing rapid change. It'll be interesting to see what it all looks like after the dust settles.
One issue not mentioned is that N/A has very poor rail/bus service. The log distance between major airports means that the regions may still be necessary to get people to the major airports.
Having more flights means more flexibility for passengers. This can be especially important when transferring to a different airline. I've chosen one airline over another several times just because of their additional flights that give me a bigger buffer between flights or allow me to catch ground transportation. Even if it was more expensive to do so. I can't imagine having only one flight a day to choose from, or even one every two days.
I doubt regionals will end. I think the older 50 seater’s like the crj200 and erj140 will mostly be gone as they age, but regionals are profitable for the legacy carriers, they allow more choices in departure times, etc. plus the pay pilots like 1/10 of the salary they would get at a mainline carrier
Nice video. Couple things I would like to add. Most of the regionals here in the US are based on a “fee for departure” model. In other words the regional airline is getting its cut in money based on the departure of the plane and not the seat sale. So technically i regional could takeoff with no passengers and still see the same revenue compared that same aircraft fully loaded. With that said, the regional is unable to cover its increase in payroll by simple increasing its ticket costs, they have no control over that. I won’t name companies but some are threatening bankruptcy, while not confirmed, due to this issue. This is only furthering the idea that regional airlines might be out the door sooner than later. One thin to also keep in mind, while as of now the regional pay rates and major pay rates are close, and in even some cases better, the majors always have the option to raise the pay scale on that side. Maybe in the near future we will see that regional airlines all of a sudden are still a cheaper alternative simply because the major airlines are offering even higher pay than regionals once more. This seems to be the road we are going down considering the Alaskan airline deal and multiple airlines are threatening strikes. Time will tell.
The regional airlines have many purposes here in the United States. The "regional jets" are specific in size and passenger loads not exceeding a certain number. Without breaking out the FAA FAR's and union clauses, I believe it's airplanes less than 100 seats and connects smaller city/airports to the big airline hubs. Another big reason is it's the stepping stone for airline employees (pilots, maintainers, cabin crews and such) to get experience and compete to get into the majors and make more money. This is unfortunate and I wish these regionals would go mainstream (pay as well) and hold their own and compete with the majors, especially on shorter flights with better service on the smaller airplanes. When I fly Delta, my preference as a passenger is 757's, if not on my flight schedule, I prefer the regionals CRJ700/900 or ERJ170/175, then the A220 or 717 (A220 and 717 are mainline, not regional). I prefer the 757 for reliability, BUT, like these smaller airplanes (110 seats and less) due to faster load/unload times and better cabin service. BUT, the regional jets inflight WiFi (unreliable) and lack of inflight entertainment are a negative for some of those rare times I fly out west for up to 2 hours in a regional jet. I believe regional sized airline specific fleets in a main line airline would draw a huge crowd. I definitely would look at flying with an airline that specifically flew a fleet of airplanes lees than 100 seats due to reasons mentioned above. And if they have a fleet that flies cross country, I'd fly them as long as the seating was comfortable and the inflight entertainment and WiFi was reliable.
that was an interesting look into it as I have never flown regional, My last regional trip was Philadelphia to Boston and I took the Acela train for that.
Very often, hopping on an American Eagle flight you will only see a half to 3/4 full flight. The “regional” routes don’t have very many people flying the routes. Also, Republic Airways is based in my hometown and they just built a massive flight school, building a huge headquarters, a fairly large sim training facility and just bought land to build a new flight school down south. I don’t think Republic is going anywhere anytime soon
I would also imagine that culture plays a large role. Turboprop planes are viewed as antiqued technology by the US general public. Even 25 years ago, it was very rare to see a turboprop passenger plane.
The biggest open secret in the industry is that the A220-300 and Embraer E2-195 have similar (if not better) fuel burn per seat to a 737MAX7 or A319neo, and they are much nicer to fly in the cabin. Airlines like KLM, Air Canada, Air Baltic, Qantas and Air France have figured this out. So have Breeze and Delta.
also, as a former ramp worker I can say the E-175 is a gorgeous plane to be a passenger on....but a nightmare to deal with as a ramp agent. those cargo holds are ridiculous!
Comparing US regional sizes to European ones isn't really valid; remember, all of Europe can fit into the half of the continental US east of the Mississippi River. Also, Europe's rail system is vastly superior, shorter, cheaper, and faster than Joketrak so they can absorb regional passengers more easily.
I found it interesting that due to Dallas-Fort Worth being a hub (as well as Phoenix) that I flew from Phoenix, Arizona to Daytona Beach, Florida and both legs were on a CRJ-900. Probably happens frequently but it's the first time I flew nearly all the way across the USA in only regional jets.
@@genxer74 In all reality I didn't mind the 2 legs cross country on a CRJ--I kind of prefer them due to 2-2 seating and much faster boarding and deplaning.
Didn't even mention the largest regional carrier in the US. Skywest Airlines is poised to take over all the other regional airline routes one by one. Skywest operates flights in many areas that do not have the runway or airport capacity to handle mainline aircraft. Regionals such as Skywest aren't going anywhere any time soon.
The most charming aspect of flying on a regional jet here is being stuck on an old CRJ with a/c condensation dripping on you from the ceiling panels. United's new CRJ550 layout is has been a nice surprise, but there is still a huge room for improved service quality. I'm hoping the Breeze's of the world and new planes like Embraer's turboprop will provide another option on these routes.
@@eheis5 And it kind of demonstrates the problem here. The only reason the 550 exists, is to satisfy the letter of the 50-seat segment of the scope clause (sort of -- there's an MTOW waiver). There are no 550s outside the US. These jets only make sense because there is no true modern 50-seater out there. Unless Embraer's planned turboprop covers it... sometime, maybe.
Good lessons were taught in this video and much that I agree with in the top comments, but one thing that I don't agree with is the premise that the regional airlines exist to cut labor costs. Regionals have been around for many decades, long before the workforce challenges we have had the last few years. There are many, many other reasons that they exist and I don't think labor shifts are enough to make major airlines absorbing "regional" operations appealing.
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Another great, informative video, Mentour Now!
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@@ground_news Awesome, you guys really do a great job.
Hello, could you please describe how the "trimming" of the airplane is technically solved and why some civil aircraft use depleted U238 (DU) for trimming?
Dear "Mr. Mentour Pilot". Thank you so much for your most eloquent and accurately detailed explanations and analyses of tragedies and their causes, that might "normally" not be very interesting to females who are not "flyers." After watching two of them, I , myself became so enamored by them , I forgot to go back to my BBC Crime and Retribution show! And I love those types of shows so much, because I enjoy trying to figure out why, who, and what is going on that "doesn't make sense.!" Ha good way to ruin a good movie, I suppose, but it seems to be my habit. I've known many aerospace inventors and pilots, personally, and some worked as insurance agent "trouble shooters." (that's what they termed themselves as being) and YOUR show reminds me so much of some of the things the uncovered. It was one of them who taught ME, to "look for" things that "were not there" in order to find what "was there," i.e, "the truth"....and I never forgot that.
The sad tragedy I "experienced" or "was spared from" experiencing, was a childhood friend of mine who 'd invited me to go along with her on a flight from LA to Salt Lake City, Utah years ago. I couldn't find a babysitter for my young son, so I wasn't able to go with her and her fiancée-who was piloting their Piper plane. (Karen Jean Olsen's obituary is on line if you read this far ?) The plane crashed into a 10,000 foot mountain. Being a songwriter and a "dreamer", I wasn't surprised the next morning when Karen came to me in a Dream. She said, exactly, this..." Don't worry about me, I've been flyin' all along" That's exactly what she said...the rest of my story can be verified by her church bishop, the LDS Church and the Coordinator of their wedding at the Utah main church.
The song, I thought you might enjoy it ---to me, was hopeful and positive; perhaps others might perceive it as being just too darn sad. But after having watched several of your extremely well coordinated videos, I'm inclined to believe that you and your family might really enjoy it. Karen and I sort of "etched" out a song together, that she kept saying she thought would make a great wedding song; but, of course WE were never able to finish it. I did, recently, and dedicated it to the memory of one of the most intelligent, and sweetest, friend I've every had . I kept asking, " Why her, and not me?" I guess that's a pretty normal reaction, actually, that you've probably heard before.
I have a question for you in regard to a video of yours, in which a British pilot , who survived or warrent off, a crash.... I can't find it again, but maybe you know which one it was ? He said he "did not want to lower the landing gear to land on the water." My little pea brained creative mind kept asking, and I rewound it and listened several times to his explanation. WHAT makes "landing " on the water with landing gear lowered , a problem? EAsy one for you, just hard for me to 'fathom" the answer/ or the defense for that opinion..(pardon the pun!) the girl can't FATHOM who would "care" that the "landing gears" were going to enter WATER ?
I'll look for it again and struggle with that some more later.
I hope you enjoy MY songs rearranged from Karen's and my DREAM.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL OF THE HARD WORK YOU DO!
Sincerely,
Lynda Faye
You Tubes: "Flyin' in the Mornin' on a High Flyin' Bird" (from the album at CDBaby as a folk song) and
"He Was Only Seventeen" ( when he went off to war, etc.,) the rearranged version.
( "I Need a Miracle"-Karen's and my Wedding Song!) I'm sure she and her fiancée are up there married by now!)
Always spot on and informative! Shout out to you guys from Pittsburgh @MentourNow
Two very crucial facts that you did not touch on Petter, are 1) the tremendous size difference between the United States and Europe and 2) our total lack of a national public rail system. It is a much used reference point, but it needs repeating - all of France would fit comfortably inside of Texas with room to spare. Speaking as a business traveler who has spent time in the EU, our regional airlines essentially operate as your business class rail service.
Is it the most effective or efficient way to do things? Not going to try to defend it one way or another. It evolved organically - in fact, there was a great advertisement by Delta back in the 1980's (using a stranded motorist) with their "We're ready when you are." campaign that captures it perfectly.
In addition, for business travelers, who still make up the majority of the revenue on US flights, wasted time sitting in an airport hub is wasted money.
Consolidating five regional flights/day to two large body jets does not well service this market. Point-to-point service in a country with 51 government centers plus the terratorial centers and the major financial hubs and every other city with manufacturing? I am not going to go there. Would the market "deal with" a loss of flight frequency because it has no other option? For a time. Until it finds more cost advantageous options which possibly will not involve flying at all. It is always good to remember who your customer is.
Runway length and "international" in a name is not sufficient research to assess an airport. Runways are often built long in the expectation of growth or other reasons. Harrisburg, PA, and Tallahassee, FL, are both state capitals, and, accordingly, cities with much business travel. Respective populations and airport terminal gates: ~550,000 with 12 gates, and ~150,000 with 14 gates. Those really are not large markets. (My apologies to my Western sisters and brothers but my miles have been mostly east of the Big River. Please add your thoughts.)
Net, net, I believe there are several more variables involved in why the regional system works for the NA market. I agree with you that financials are certainly a major aspect of it but there are other sides of those financials - if people stop flying, no one wins. My money is still on the regional system for the foreseeable future, especially now that the airlines are beginning to pay their crews more correctly.
I apologize for the long response, but you put so much great effort into all of your videos, which i enjoy and look forward to every week, that I felt you deserved more than just a terse one sentence response that might be misconstrued.
With Best Regards Lisa
contiguous US - 8 million sq km
Europe - 10.5 sq km ( there is more to Europe than what's in the minds of the typical American tourist)
Rail systems in Europe are ok within individual countries. Not so much for international travel.
@@jeffn8218 so shall we include Canada and Mexico? LoL No the point is, why would Air France have a large set of regional aircraft when their country is small. I always find it odd how Europeans don’t want to be lumped together unless it fits their argument.
@@jeffn8218 does that number include Greenland? Because I know it probably includes Iceland and Greenland is politically part of Europe even though it is geographically part of North America. A rather enormous chunk of Europe is also included in Eastern Russia and while I'm sure it's somewhat different from the days of the USSR I'd be willing to guess that air service in Russia is still significantly behind what is found in Western Europe or even the less populated western parts of the US. When you start throwing these numbers around you have to compare apples to apples.
@@jeffn8218 I have had no difficulty using rail for business travel across multiple international borders in Western EU. I cant speak for farther east. The worst I have experienced on rail Europe far exceeds our best which would be New England/northest corridor.
Excellent points, as a regional employee you explained excellent points.
Frequency of services has a lot to do with it. Who wants to spend half a day at a hub airport because your only connection was at zero dark thirty?
True that
If it commercially makes sense to do what Petter is saying, then the frequency will not be a concern to the majors, as if they all follow suit, the passengers will not have a choice
Well if there were no split mainline & regional fleets, maybe there would be more direct flights between small airports. And THAT is probably where the market will be headed, if/when the regionals bite the dust.
@@danielmosey6203 Passengers always have a choice, that's the entire premise of the Western World is a free and competitive market
@@danielmosey6203 There is always a choice because all airlines don’t have the same exact schedule, so people will book whatever is more convenient to them. An airline will happily add a cheap CRJ flight just to kill their competitor in a market.
Native Texan here: I used to LOVE flying in those turbojet "puddlejumpers" from small regional airports to larger airports. I thought it was much more fun that a 'boring' big jet. 🙂
Definitely, and they need to come back. That's my idea of regional air travel.
Agred I'm flying an ATR between Helsinki and Tallinn, Estonia in January and I'm really looking forward to it.
@@schalitz1 it's fun, and feels surprisingly like a jet! (it is turboprop)
Same. I flew on a CRJ. They feel like a sports car compared to the Airbus or Boeing. I like them better than the others
Had a few years making frequent trips to the US and favourite part was the 1-2 hour regional connections in little twin turboprops like the A340. Love the sound, especially in rain.
The basis of competition in the US is often flight frequency. If you can fly smaller aircraft to a regional airport several times a day versus one large jet once a day, it will impact your market share significantly. Having a cheaper pilot salary scale doesn't hurt, but the main reason is to keep the feeder flights full so that the hubs can operate near capacity, especially if those are international hubs launching the highly profitable long-haul flights.
Good point, but one big reason for planes like the A220, is to enable flying between small airports that are far apart. So ultimately, folding the regionals into the mainline carrier could (?) lead to more point-to-point flights between smaller airports. Kinda like Southwest, but in a wider scale, network-wise.
In Euro you can just drive from region to region.
It's the same reason for limited applications for public transportation.
Canada & US are huge.There are a lot of regional aircrafts.
Absolutely correct!
European airlines have far less domestic passengers to fly than the US because most countries have a main domestic carrier, but are small. In the US a carrier must fly people into and out of hubs that cover very large areas.
As such, it takes a lot of frequency to many airports to keep those feeds going.
I’m glad he used PIT as an example. There just wasn’t enough demand there to keep a hub going and airlines use a mix of mainline and express planes flying to keep the load factors up. There’s no sense in flying a 738 three times when there’s only a need for ~250 passengers, so they fly a 738 in the morning and then two CRJs in the afternoon/evening.
They are clogging up our airports!
@@afcgeo882 plus European countries have functioning railway systems which will absorb some of the traffic which is carried by planes in the US.
One of the big differences between US and Europe is that for the most part there is an efficient passenger rail network in Europe to feed the airports. There is poor rail feeder service in the US so the feeder service is by more frequent service to smaller (market not necessarily physical) airports.
It seems to be the case that the regionals here in the US mainly serve the purpose of connecting less-popular (not necessarily smaller) airports to central hubs, rather than providing service between small airports that can’t support larger aircraft. I live in Albuquerque, and even though we have an airport with 3 large, long runways and consistent wide-body cargo traffic, nearly every passenger flight is on a regional jet (aside from southwest’s 737s and Delta’s a320 connection to Atlanta). Seems to be true at other airports that aren’t major passenger hubs too.
American flies 737’s into ABQ all the time while Delta uses Airbus to do the same.
FWIW 737s and A320s fly internationally between New Zealand and Australia, usually a 3 and a half hour plus flight. "Regional" planes in New Zealand add ATR72s and de Havilland Q300s flown by the national carrier to the jets and then even smaller planes flown by true regional air lines e.g. C208s
Also for carriers flying into another dominant carrier's hub. People residing in Houston may fly United to Dallas, while people residing in Dallas may fly American to Houston. They both want enough frequency so people don't choose the other airline based on schedule, so some of those planes will be regionals. They both also want to support their international operations from their home airports.
My US town of ~50k population has fairly new "regional" flights twice a day operated by Envoy. The are *definitely* feeder flights by American Airlines - going only between KSWO and KDFW.
Gotta say they we *love* it. As a long-time business flyer, I have driven many, many miles and paid thousands of dollars for airport parking just to get between home and KOKC or KTUL. Now having a local connection to AA is completely awesome change.
"There is no worker shortage, there is only pay shortage"
YES, thank you for bringing that up. Doesn't just apply to pilots and aircrews, but literally every industry ever. Teachers, service industry, even manufacturing.
Definitely in the healthcare sector as well
Greed, nothing else!
@Wiryan Tirta: that shortage is resumed by the awkward "talent shortage". I personally tend to read "talent" as a misspelled "slave".
@@lahodal you misspelled too: it's growth. Having greedy board members is another thing. Donella Meadows see that coming 50 years ago: put simply if it can no longer extend upward, it has to extend downward...
@@carlvincent12 Yes here nurses are holding patients hostage in a war on salary, A war where they have taken half time jobs in two hospitals to bypass the rules. Already earning allot more than equal jobs/educations. but opportunities like covid lead them down the path of blackmail. Why should a nurse earn more than a policeofficer, or a medical engineer with a far longer education and 20 years more exp.. Greed and entitlement is growing in the EU/west. I would rather be treated by a kind immigrant philippino nurse than a Danish that feel they are better than their job.
Short security lines are nice at small airports.
Having worked for a US mid-sized corporation for over 30 years, I found that expecting logic to be the reason for business decisions was almost never an expectation that became a reality, especially if $ were part of the decision (and $ were always part of the decision).
As someone who works as an aircraft dispatcher for CommuteAir, an airline you mentioned in this video, I could give some additional insight into this conversation. There are some additional factors that also effect our operations and why regional airlines won’t go away in the US anytime soon. Passengers in America want convenience, and regional airlines can provide this with higher frequency of flights. In addition, passengers want comfort in their regional flights and thus why props have mostly gone extinct in regional operations here, and also resulting in lower passengers density in the cabins with more legroom and wider seats. In addition the United States government offers indentures to smeller cities with Essential Services Flights which have to be at or below certain requirements, which by chance happen to be just slightly above the Scope Clauses for most US regionals. While regionals have been paying pilots and many other crew members better than ever, these rates are still well below mainline as the majors have had to increase wages as well. Honestly, the worker shortage at airlines will probably continue for the next couple of years, and will probably result in pay continuing to go up.
EXACTLY!!!
Finally, someone mentions the _tellement démodé_ props, icon of outdated aircraft technology and of, um, yeah, aero economy.
I assume "smeller cities" would include Cedar Rapids, Iowa?
@@MendTheWorld That is correct.
I don't think regionals are going away. Honestly, you only looked at
I'm a 32 year retired US major airline mechanic. When I first started the commuters were only turbo props and the regional aircraft were flown & maintained by the main line carriers. As the years went by the turbo props were taken out of service and the major airlines established their own wholly owned regional service. The reason is simple as the main line carriers pay their wholly owned subsidiary carriers less, and the aircraft don't burn as much fuel or pay as much in landing fees. If the US ever had dependable high speed rail service this would be a problem for regional airlines. FLY NAVY!!!
I worked for US Airways for 36 years. The first 24 years were in Cleveland, Ohio. We were a smaller mostly mainline station with some regional flights. After 9/11 airline traffic had dropped across the industry. In 2003 we were informed that our station was being turned into a regional station with no mainline flights. My options were to either transfer to a station with mainline flights or stay in Cleveland and go to work for the regional airline at a 50% pay cut. I packed my family up and transferred. After they announced the closure of the station US Airways sent in a group of people to explain our options and the process . They also sent in a VP to explain why our station was closing. He said that regional jets were more cost effective and the airline was planning on buying many more. I asked him what the plan was when the passengers returned to flying and all we had left were small regional jets. This genius's answer was "We don't expect the passengers to ever return in the numbers before 9/11." I often wonder what happened to that moron. I retired in 2016 from American Airlines.
Got that same "traffic will never return" trope in 2020 from our HQ.
Fast forward to today and we are up the proverbial creek with labor & supply shortages. It's that kind of bean counting reactionary decision making to appease Wall Street that keeps the industry in a circle of chaos.
Probably got promoted for his "genius" ideas
@mwilk - let's look at it from the other perspective. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we knew who the bad guy was. We spent tons of money, rewrote procedues, upgraded security, etc. Turned air travel inside out in an effort to keep people safe AND to ensure they felt safe. It is a basic idea: if people were using a thing at rate X before it broke, they will return to generally the same use rate when it is repaired.
But that didn't happen. I remember the predictions of "air travel should be back to previous levels by the 3rd qtr 2002". Nope. Nor 3rd qtr 2003. It was almost 2005 before passenger numbers returned to pre-2001 levels; and it took a major shift downward in ticket fares to get people moving. So much of a shift down, that it was the 2007 time frame before the airlines' revenue returned to pre-2001 levels - just in time for the 2008 recession. Which took revenues to the pre 9/11 range again.
So, it is 2003. Ticket sales have been abysmal since 9/11 despite all the safety measures. Business travel that had been "essential" only two years before had vanished. Companies are promoting home offices and telecommuting as the way forward. And THEN we invaded Iraq. All the color coded risk level stuff - just the thing to put people in the flying mood. Not. It looked really bleak.
@@lisanadinebaker5179 You can blame the TSA for making flying miserable. No wonder the Flying numbers took years to go back up. There was no upgraded security. It's just a bunch of theatrics. TSA agents are bunch on inept security guard rejects, who shouldn't be qualified to hold a flashlight.
Sounds like AA lol.
In Canada, regional 'Air Canada Jazz' flies 3 hours route such as Vancouver-Chicago, or Calgary-Chicago, or Edmonton-San Francisco. It was always told that the pay at Jazz is much lower than at mainline Air Canada, and moving flights to Jazz is in part a way to keep labour costs down.
The 175, which has 76 seats is far more popular with flight crews and passengers. The 50 seaters are disappearing, partly because the 175 is so popular, and partly because they can go to most places the 50 seaters go. Analysing an entire industry based on two planes out of thousands is grossly inaccurate. The 190s aren’t as efficient at the mailine level and they’re disappearing. As for rate increases, it’s about time. And now the mainlines are in contract negotiations, and after the next year or two they’ll be making more too. So the regionals aren’t going anywhere. BTW, there are regional pilots now making more money than some of their mainline counterparts.
We had a lot of ATRs in the US in the regional fleet. Then the whole 'ice up and fall out of the sky' issue happened and people started to not feel comfortable on turboprops.
I fly a lot of ATRs... in between the tropics.🌴
Oddly enough it was DHC-8s that were icing up and ATRs were moved South. Meanwhile, Dash-8s still ply the polar skies.
An accident usually doesn´t sort out a whole type of aircrafts if there´s no other issue supporting their out-fleeting. And yes, the ATR are known since that accident to be sensible for icing - but there were and are other types of Turboprops in the market. So there´s more behind it.
Personally I really miss the 340's.
Perhaps look up what aircraft British Antarctic Survey uses :-)!
You still need to give passengers more options in feeder airlines, if a regional cuts by half its flights it’s extremely difficult to make decent connections
The biggest issue with Breeze is that they’re trying to grow with infrequent services. I don’t care how cheap you claim to be if I have to plan my vacation around a twice weekly flight. Until they get up to daily on their routes, I’m going to wait and see.
That model has worked for allegiant airlines . Pretty good some would say. It may not be a bad plan
@@ljthirtyfiver Allegiant has more of a niche than Breeze does. Allegiant enters really small markets and induce demand by offering cheap direct flights to popular leisure destinations like Orlando or Vegas. Breeze also starts new point-to-point routes, but they're often between 2 mid-sized airports, and then they have to try to attract demand to more "off-the-beaten-path" destinations like Charleston or Norfolk. They also add and cut routes so fast it's hard to keep up with what they're offering and when.
My wife travels a lot for work and we deliberately chose to live in a city with a big regional airport rather than a major hub. She has many more flight choices from here than she might at a major hub airport. With her preferred airline, there are 5 hubs she can connect through to get to her various destinations. She has never missed a meeting or appointment due to weather or equipment, while some of her major hub based colleagues have. Also, drop off or parking, car rental, check in and security are much easier than at a major hub. Yes, there is connection time added, but the ease of use of our home airport makes up for the connections.
@BK Binj - having worked high travel jobs for the majority of my career, some to the tune of 80% on the road, I also evolved to using this strategy, both for my home Port and chosen destination airports. Logan or Providence? No brainer - PVD everytime. Stress minimization has a value.
That’s a fair point. Thank you
Tickets are cheaper aswell
I live in the US and I had no clue what pilots meant when they say they started at regional but now I have a lot better understanding of it.
You never once looked it up? Wow.
I work for a major US carrier as a mechanic. Delta and American pilots recently turned down big pay raises and voted to strike. United offered 18% pay raises over the next 15 months. They turned it down with a 94% no vote. Now that the majors are profitable again after 2 years they want big pay raises. Pilots have very strong unions and stick together. They get what they want. I doubt that a strike will be allowed, there hasn't been one at a major carrier since northwest in the late 90's. They just tell them to keep negotiating. With the current pilots shortage they hold all the cards. There also is a mechanic shortage the likes of which I haven't seen in my 24 years of employment. We also have some leverage come contract time. So to with all work groups. Flying is going to get and stay more expensive.
One thing that I think is relevant here is that (at least in the US) the major carriers' primary revenue source is not aircraft operations. They're basically banks. The airline operations are essentially rebate programs for their credit cards and loyalty programs. They need to offer whatever those customers want to keep them using their credit cards. If the miles I earn on my credit cards are not convenient to redeem, I'll find a different reward program.
Just started at a US regional airline last week. Great timing!
Congratulations! I hope you enjoy your work and have a meaningful career!
Good video overall, but you're overlooking a key piece: Southwest. You repeatedly pointed out that regional partner airlines don't fly to smaller airports as much as their European equivalents do. That is because Southwest focuses on these smaller regional flights. And it has a very successful business model by focusing on shorter flights between smaller airports in smaller planes.
Small 737 planes.
Better yet, the A220 was designed to fly between smaller airports on LONG flights, if necessary. That's probably where things are headed.
Southwest has NOTHING to do with this conversation. It has no regional partnership. It’s a low cost carrier.
Southwest flies anything between 40 min to 5 hour+ flights. Flights are almost always full. All 737s. It can be done and they’ve proved it. They run an efficient model.
@@SpyGeorgilis Not much demand for smaller airport to smaller airport flights though. Most people want to fly to a big hub.
I am looking at SkyWest’s route map. They do routes for the big four (you left out Alaska Air) major US airlines. Most of the routes are from a hub to a small airport.
GoJet also flies between hubs and a lot of small airports, but are only working with one major. Endeavor does the same with Delta.
The US does not have the rail network that Europe has. Look at the combined route maps of Skywest, GoJet, and Endeavor to see how many more small airports are served by air here that would be served by rail in Europe.
I have been flying long enough that I have seen some of these regional airlines switch between which major they worked with or new regional become the airline serving the route for the major.
LOL alaska air.
Skywest is able to cover more airlines (UA, AA, DL, AS) because they're an independent regional airline (the largest in the world actually). I believe most, if not all, the other regional airlines are owned (wholly and in part) by the previous mentioned airlines.
LMAO Alaska is not part of any Big Four 😂. Their presence is pretty minimal everywhere else except the West Coast.
I've noticed this year that a lot of routes i fly that used to be CRJ-700 and/or CRJ-900, are now being serviced by 737's a lot of the time. And i was told by a pilot (for Delta airlines) that it was because of the pilot shortage. They don't have enough pilots for the flight deck positions they have.
It’s kinda complicated in America. Everyone flies from pretty much everywhere over here. We have so many airports. Even smaller “cities” have airports and airlines. Like where I live near Knoxville, TN, our airport basically serves just to get you to a bigger airport for your main flight. We do have some direct flights to big cities now (like to Las Vegas), but even then it’s limited to a couple of times a week, and doesn’t always schedule for someone’s needs. Most of the fleet at McGhee Tyson are smaller regional jets, for that reason. We don’t have 300 people wanting to fly to Chicago twice a week, but certainly might have 70 per day wanting to make that flight
The regional airlines you mentioned in Scandinavia remind me of the daily milk run route that Alaska does from Seattle to Anchorage via the Southern Alaska Inner Passage. Which is both to serve small Alaskan town for cargo shipments and residents getting to Anchorage, Juneau, or the lower 48.
Probably this is no coincidence: Both - Norway and Sweden - are large in size but only sparsely populated with only a few larger cities. The northern parts of the Countries are Arctic Regions with very long and very harsh winters. Both Countries have an Airline doing all the necessary stuff in this remote areas and connecting them with the few larger cities: Wideroe in Norway and Bra in Sweden.
Our regional airline here in Scotland is thankfully pretty simple, run by Logan Air, they use turbo props to fly from my northern city, Aberdeen, to the islands, so Orkney and Shetland. On Orkney there’s a very small airline that goes from island to island where one of those flights is a 2 minute flight and the craft doesn’t go above 1,000 feet (mostly used by locals who need to travel between islands, and plane enthusiasts!). The small Orkney craft is essentially treated like a bus, it’s pretty cheap (I could get tickets from £10-£15) and it’s a LOT faster than waiting for a small ferry. Apparently it’s also the Guinness World Record for the shortest flight in the world!
So over here they’re desperately needed to connect the islands to mainland Scotland, especially Orkney, Shetland, the Hebredian Islands, there’s even a regular small craft that takes pregnant women to Aberdeen’s hospital to give birth (Gama Aviation), and there’s even smaller locations that are subsidised by our government because they’re isolated communities (Tiree, Barra, Campbeltown) because they just aren’t financially viable by themselves but Scottish government recognises they’re needed services, also run by Logan Air.
There aren’t insane waits tho, it’s a regular service to be relied on, and the flights don’t generally last more than 1 hour unless there’s some issue (mechanical, weather, weather mostly being the issue because hey, this is Scotland!). It’s mostly the ATR-72 used here, the Orcadian small craft is a lovely “aerodynamic brick” (as described by her pilot!) the BN-2!
So there’s some random regional aircraft facts for northern Scotland/Scottish islands, our regional airline is seen as a super important lifeline and used regularly by the oil industry, there’s multiple flights to/from Sumburgh (Shetland) every day, get to see them all the time from my house as I’m very close to the flight path!
These days they’re flying more ERJs, rescued from FlyBMI. And GAMA provide all of the flight services for the Scottish Ambulance Service, typically in the SAS colours, but occasionally in unmarked relief planes when the core aircraft are unavailable
Eyyy, Scottish people in the house! Unfortunately, I'm boring. I just see Easyjet, Aer Lingus and the occasional United flight landing RWY 24 at Edinburgh through my kitchen window.
@@fnnhh that makes sense, I assume it’s cheaper getting the ERJs that way? I know Aberdeen just has a lot of ATRs for Aberdeen-Sumburgh/Kirkwall
As a American from the United States that Impressive
I believe the Shetland flights are also subsidised by the local authorities. The UK government also fund flights between London city and Dundee, by Logan air.
As someone who’s worked their way through regionals to work for a major US airline, I appreciate this video. It’s often hard to explain all these issues when asked. You’ve done a great job condensing these issues into a digestible video.
Keep making great content!
Here in Dallas Fort Worth we had the Wright amendment which was a law passed to prevent Southwest from competing against the big boys. It also was to protect DFW airport from losing income to Love Field. That kept them regional, but the law has expired. I’m pretty sure Southwest still doesn’t fly out of DFW. For a while, the big three were buying up gates at Love Field to keep Southwest from expanding.
They also have a strong Lobby to prevent high speed rail from DFW to Houston.
Checker Cab fought the rail connection from ORD to Chicago for years.
Southwest is expected to start occupying DFW in 2024. The contract states they have to operate only out of love field until 2024. So they can start buying gates at DFW if they wanted (and they might)
I don’t think the regional airlines are dying, but they’re definitely being regrouped. There’s a lot of small airports, especially in Texas, that see regional service to DFW. A lot of these locations can’t sustain service and are losing service all together.
services to EAS airports are definitely going through an adjustment period. My airline cut travel to at least 29 EAS cities this year, mainly due to not having enough pilots.
I think it’s a problem of not having aircraft that can serve them any more. Not one of the aircraft that served the fields in my state (save the three majors) are manufactured any more, nor is any airline still flying them. Southern is stepping in, and it’s a godsend, but they’re still working out the kinks. Seems also that the milkrun flights are gone, not sure why.
Hey @Mentour Now!
One of the big factors of having regional airlines is frequency of flights and that was discussed by many in the comments.
Another reason I haven’t seen mention is the legal and logistic isolation from the big three businesses. You mentioned fleet sizes and that is a big factor that drives their existence.
For example, Delta doesn’t want to create the infrastructure required to house, maintain, and operate all fo those regional jets. Most importantly it doesn’t want to have the legal and regulatory liability of operating them.
There are several excellent videos documenting the controversy of “are regional airlines actually different companies?” This was highlighted as a part of the Colgan Air tragedy and the accompanying lawsuits levied by the victims families.
For now, Delta, United, and American Airlines are allowed to reap the full business benefits of these smaller regional airlines within assuming any financial, logistical, legal, or regulatory liability.
It’s a huge win for the big 3 that they continue to exist.
With jets like the CSeries/A220 emerging as a class of airplane that is smaller, regional size but has the efficiency to fly farther point to point route, it will be interesting to see if the big three start operating more direct flights because the economics start to make sense with those planes.
Consumers pay more for direct flights and want a direct flight but not too much. The CSeries/A220 and future similar aircraft could make the need/shift away from regional operators possible.
Don’t forget the embraer E2 (175, 190 and 195)
As an American, I realize the model used by Most airlines here is pretty strange (my preferred domestic carrier SWA is the exception). But Europe with its wet leases and naked planes and business class being 3 economy seats with a table over the middle seat, is pretty strange to me. Once I flew a LOT codeshare from WAW-STR that had a long tarmac delay. The pilots and cabin crew made all the announcements in English (which was fine for me) but none of them understood any Polish or German. As it turns out their first language was Spanish.
You mention Miami and Charleston as part of a single regional route. That's 788km. From Paris CDG, that would get you to anywhere in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the vast majority of Germany, the whole of England and Wales (but not Scotland), and much of northern Italy, plus parts of Austria and Czechia, and enough of Ireland to include Dublin, and the very north of Spain (maybe enough to include Barcelona and Pamplona).
Would that be a regional flight in Europe?
I’m a Republic Flight Attendant and I actually worked ON that airplane 422 on the day you mentioned, Oct 20! Cool! I’m in Pittsburgh. I’m about to hit 22 years seniority. I hope my airline is around a long time, but for selfish reasons, at least 20 more years, til I can retire, that is. My pilots all just got a huge raise. Some of our seniors pilots have been scaring me lately with predictions exactly to the point of this video. I hope I don’t lose my job. :( Thanks for this video. You make perfect sense, unfortunately for me, and my colleagues.
I work for a regional airline (piedmont airlines) based in the USA, operating regional routes for American Airlines. The demand is huge and flights are in extremely high demand. Regional airlines(PSA, piedmont, mesa) 😮were responsible for keeping the airlines in business during the pandemic. No one expected for the demand to shoot through the roof like it did. We can’t keep enough pilots staffed to support all these routes. They’re giving great bonuses right now for pilots looking for a career.
Things sure have changed. One of my first regional flights was out of somewhere in South Carolina 45 years ago. The guy at the check in counter loaded the luggage, then was the pilot. I was the last passenger on, and all the seats were full, so I ended up sitting in the front right seat. The pilot asked me not to touch any of the instruments.
ah, the golden age of flying
That still happens, hop on a Cape Air flight sometime.
There is one important point missing. That is that the us market demands frequency. If you replace the regional with mainline you lose frequency.
I agree with the Flight Frequency argument. I take assignments with my company that require travel to numerous cities about a 1 or 2 hour flight away. Fewer flights /choices mean more overnights, and a much higher cost. Plus the added time for me, and time away from my home and family, which is the most valuable commodity of all.
There´re in fact two very different systems in Europe and in the US: The relevant US Carrier are Commuter Airlines, not Regional Airlines. They´ve a different role in different Business Models.
The European Model is indeed that the relevant Carrier are operating as Regional Airlines either in flying routes on which are not enough customers to fill a Boeing or an Airbus or in flying routes to minor airports to connect them. So in Europe either the Major Carrier are owning their Regional Airlines as part of their Group (Lufthansa => Lufthansa Cityline and Air Dolomiti; KLM => KLM Cityhopper; Air France => Air France Hop; British Airways => BA Cityflyer; TAP Air Portugal => Portugallia; Finnair => NORRA; Aegean Airlines => Olympic Air) or they´re really independent Airlines operating on their own risk (Bra in Sweden; Wideroe in Norway; Loganair in the UK; Binter and Canarias Airlines on the Canary Islands in Spain; Amelia International and Chalair in France; Sprintair in Poland - Helvetic Airways in Switzerland is a mixed Regional Airline, being independent but operating with one half of their fleet for Swiss, with the other half on their own risk). Only in two cases there´re "independent" Regional Airlines operating for a Major Carrier: SAS (Scandinavia) => Cityjet (Ireland) and Xfly (Estonia); Iberia => Air Nostrum (both from Spain). But both cases are still Regional Airlines in the European sense.
Therefore they own a wide range of Aircrafts, depending on their specific and often very different operations, different fleet policies and of course financial backgrounds: Lufthansa Cityline A 319-100, E 190 and CRJ 900; Air Dolomiti E 195; KLM Cityhopper E 175 (yes!), E 190 and E 195-E2; Air France Hop E 170 (yes!), E 190 and CRJ 1000; BA Cityflyer E 190; Portugallia E 190 and E 195; NORRA E 190 and ATR 72; Olympic Air ATR 42, ATR 72, Dash 8-100 and Dash 8-400; Bra ATR 72; Wideroe E 190E-2, Dash 8-100, Dash 8-200, Dash 8-300 and Dash 8-400; Loganair ERJ 135, ERJ 145, ATR 42, ATR 72, Saab 340, Twin Otter and even Britten-Norman Islander; Binter E 195E-2 and ATR 72; Canarias ATR 72; Amelia A 319-100, ERJ 135, ERJ 145, ATR 42, ATR 72 and Beechcraft 1900C; Chalair ATR 42 and ATR 72; Sprintair ATR 72 and Saab 340; Helvetic E 190, E 190-E2 and E 195 -E2; Cityjet CRJ 900; Xfly CRJ 900 and ATR 72; Air Nostrum CRJ 1000, CRJ 200 and ATR 72.
That´s a whole other story in the US and I doubt the Commuter System will disappear there in the foreseeable Future.
Not sure if this has been pointed out, but in comparing US airlines to airlines in other countries, airlines in other countries are often subsidized by the governments of those countries. In the US, they are not. They are a business, needing to turn a profit.
Some small airport in the Essential Air program do pay the Regionals for service.
As @enat66 pointed out the Essential Air Service Program is 100% a government subsidy.
You make some good points about our regional airlines, but comparing European airlines to US airlines is quite difficult since all of Europe would fit in a small corner of the US.
17:51 "Breeze Airways... are the only US airline with E-190s and E-195s." Actually one other airline has E-190s - JetBlue operates 60 of them. JetBlue has begun replacing their E-190s with A220s, and anticipates the entire fleet will have been replaced with A220s by 2025. The A220 has markedly better fuel economy - despite having 40 more seats than the E-190, it uses less fuel.
Well Petter says "the only US airline with E-190s AND E-195s"... which is correct. And strictly-speaking, Breeze would quite like to have only E-195s, but couldn't find enough of them, so Petter's point of maximizing regional jet size, stands.
My son is midway through his training to become a commercial pilot at a flight school in Utah. This video had a lot of interesting information I was unaware of, so I passed it on to him. Love your videos!!
Sounds like he picked a career that will definitely be in demand! (And extremely cool, too!)
Cool, what school is he going to? I'm a flight instructor in Utah haha
I'm an airline pilot in Utah. The local regional airline of choice will definitely want him!
@@genxer74 haha yes we will
Good video... but I'm not sure about that. I fly from a small regional airport (COU) typically on Embraer 175s... with flights are typically full or almost full. Schedules are very accommodating - with flights in and out from 6 AM, 9 AM, 5 PM and 9 PM... going to Chicago, Dallas, and Denver. A 737 would either be underutilized or the flights would be limited to just once or twice a day... greatly diminishing its usefulness for frequent business flyers. I love flying from my regional... it's convenient, parking is free, very little wait time, and I really like the 2-by-2 seating of the Embraers! So I hope you're wrong... 🙂
JetBlue avoided this scope trap by not having regional contract carriers (except for Cape Air flying Cessna 402s in a few niche markets). They bought E-190s to operate their entire own system with their own equipment.
JetBlue uses Silver airways for their intraflorida connections. I’ve flown a connection from FLL to MCO in one of them it was very strange lol.
The regionals that I'm used to here in the U.S. are often at airports that could support heavier aircraft, but don't due to economics. Much of that is based on the percentage of fill that a plane has; if it's too empty, flights get cancelled here. I'm not certain, but I suspect that there are laws on the books in Europe that doesn't allow for cancelling flights as easily as they do in the U.S., which is why it might have a different result.
Yeah, european companies and foreign ones that depart from Europe have to pay the customers and in some cases offer food and a place to stay if flights are delayed for more than a few hours (I think 2 or 3), and if the flight is cancelled (on top of the free ticket on a different flight or the money back).
They don’t cancel them because they don’t fly to them. European airlines only serve main cities. Trains then serve the outliers. Europe has a much higher population density.
@@h-0058 I wish I, here in the US would get money back if my flights were delayed. Sometime can't even get peanuts without paying and arm and a leg. Also, I think like people have been mentioning in previous posts, US is accustomed to flying and don't have the rail infrastructure that make trains a viable competitor to 'cheap' flights.
@@h-0058 I wish I, here in the US would get money back if my flights were delayed. Sometime can't even get peanuts without paying and arm and a leg. Also, I think like people have been mentioning in previous posts, US is accustomed to flying and don't have the rail infrastructure that make trains a viable competitor to 'cheap' flights.
Actually, here in the US we have the Essential Air Service program that was part of the airline deregulation act that passed in 1978. The federal government has a number of routes that no passengers or airlines would ever expect to have a use for airline travel, but Congress makes the FAA put the routes out for bids and the lowest bidder gets to fly a scheduled service according to the contract requirements without caring if there is a single passenger on board. The government is paying enough to provide the service and a profit on these routes knowing that most flights don't have any paying passengers.
So, the issue in the US is unions. It is airline unions that have essentially caused the US to shoot themselves in the foot. Not surprising. Unions are self-serving. The same thing is playing out with automakers. I bet the 1500-hour rule came from these unions who keep insisting that there is no "shortage of pilots", just a shortage of pay.
Once the regional airlines go, the US won't need as many pilots, making the remaining pilots more valuable. The result of this is that a lot of people (in small towns away from major airports) will lack air-service and those who still have it will have to pay more for it as costs go up significantly for airlines.
I think you are missing one key thing in your equation. The regional airport in my area is 50% passenger/50% cargo. We have two key cargo deployments here, pharmaceutical and air feeder service for major package express integrators. The airport is quite a busy place despite it being small.
But that is just one airport.
You said you would get back to the topic of frequencies but didn't really (aside from the issue of total fuel burn). It's quite possible that LGA-PIT has a demand of 225 passengers a day, but spread out over the course of the day (e.g. business passengers in the morning and evening, and leisure travelers during the midday). The only way to capture all of this demand is by flying a 76-seater E175 three times a day. You could put an A321 on the route and only fly once, but you wouldn't be able to fill 225 seats, as half your business passengers and a chunk of leisure travelers would refuse to fly at a time inconvenient to them.
Im sitting on a regional airline… Avelo, waiting to take off in 19 mins from New Haven to Fort Myers.
HVN - is the plane full?
Enjoy your flight!
@@alyonapetrova694 about 8 open seats. I flew the same route the Monday prior and it was 100% full.
@@blakebarone1809 GREAT to here that HVN may have found their “niche”. Soon, I understand that a new Terminal is being built. Thanks!
The video was short sighted on a number of factors. Lisa Nadine Baker pointed out a number of factors where there is no comparison between the US and European carriers. The biggest reason why the regionals have flourished is the shortsightedness of the major airline pilot unions allowing 76 seat jet to be flown by the regionals (they should have just said 50 was the limit). With the majors being as penny pinching as they are (they will try to save a dime even though it costs them a dollar in the long term) there will always be a regional airlines. Another topic brought up is you can put one 737 on a route instead of three regional jets. Sure you can, but you will not provide the frequency of flights that the public demands. So instead of a couple mainline flights a day you will have one mainline and three regional flights a day. Next, they are throwing money at regional pilots (50% raises) to attract new people but they have also done that because they are trying to make them stay a little longer. Now a first office can make 100k for a year and then go to captain where he/she will make 150k (plus generous bonuses). They may say a little longer because a jump to the major comes with a large pay cut (first year pay at a major is not great).
The biggest factor is again pay, which you alluded to. But you fail to recognize that all the regionals have gotten their massive pay increases (50%+). But next comes the major pay increases for the major airlines. All the major airlines are up for new contracts (Southwest, United, American, Delta). When they do come you will probably see raises of +15%. This will again widen the gap between major and regional pay. So with that gap you will always see the majors wanting regional airlines to stick around because they are cheaper.
As a passenger, i prefer lots of small flights a day rather than 1 bigger flight because i most likely will be home much sooner. Waiting 6 hours at the Las Vegas airport is horrendous.
The congestion all those small flights create doesn't matter until bad weather effects ripple through the whole system and you end up sitting on a plane for hours during a ground stop.
@@jeffn8218 LoL.
@Alex Wyler - waiting six hours in any airport is horrendous, but I think I would prefer LV to Green Bay. There has to at least be more than two places to eat in LV.
I understand your perspective Mentour. I grew up on farm and originally from a small town in rural Southwest Minnesota. I currently live and work in Denver, CO. I am extremely lucky to be able to fly from DIA (DEN) Denver International Airport into ATY or Watertown Regional Airport. SkyWest used to provide EAS (Essential Air Service) into Watertown from DIA via United Branding. The contract recently was then awarded to Denver Air Connection (Headquartered right across Arapahoe Road at Centennial Airport from where I work at US. Foods) I cherish the EAS service provided for passengers flying from DIA into Watertown, SD. The farm I grew up on which is in the middle of nowhere is only a half hour from Watertown, SD or ATY. It is absolutely amazing that I can get from Denver to the middle of nowhere USA in an hour. I feel I am very fortunate and will ALWAYS advocate EAS into Watertown, SD. Also a couple of fun facts: ATY just built a brand new terminal that is now open. Barack Obama when he was President of the United States visited Watertown, SD not once, but twice during his presidency, which is very astonishing. They flew a modified Boeing 757 into this airport as Air Force one. Watertown, SD is a very rural town and is considered a very small town by major city standards. I cannot say enough great things about Denver Air Connection and ATY for keeping EAS. Normally what would be a 12 hour drive, I can arrive home to visit my family and hometown within an hour. I state all of this as each EAS situation is very circumstantial and can have vast difference in model from route to route in the United States. Currently Denver Air Connection uses Embraer 145 50 seat jets from DIA into ATY. It is also very cool to work at US. Foods in Centennial and see these very same jets land at their home base for maintenance at APA in Centennial. I share all this, as this is a very specific example of a very small regional airline in the United States thriving while connecting very rural America to major United States Airports. Love your videos Mentour and wanted to shed some light on my experience flying recently in the United States using a very small regional airline.
Why doesn't US Foods fly you home in a private jet!? Just kidding. But Seneca Foods in Penn Yan NY has three jets and they operate the airport, too.
I used to be a Comair/Delta Connection regional airline employee and we were a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta Airlines. Your take is credible, however, there is also an aspect you didn't cover...frequency. The US market demands frequency over plane size. Yes, you can put an A321 in place of 3 EMB175s, thus savings the additional crew, fuel, etc...but at the expense of the demand by the pax demand to have (sometimes) hourly flights between local airports and hubs...or point to point flights.
For example, at my local airport, we have 4-5 rotations to the various hubs for the Legacy3 as well as our RONs throughout the day. Yeah, you could cut that in half and use A321s or 757s, but we get regionals and mainline combinations depending on the legacy carrier. Then add in the other rotations to places like DCA and EWR as well, plus WN, G4 and F9 service as well. So it is about frequency that, in many cases dictates the multiple trips between hub/outstation daily. And the regional feed allows for the 76 seats and fewer during the hours that don't require 150+ seats, but pax still demand the convenience of timing of flights.
@D Peters - hey, glad to know there are still some Comair folks around! We miss you guys here in the Tristate. I loved that little airline - bounced all over the eastern part of the country, never having to deal with the hassles of a mega airport. I hope you were able to land a good position elsewhere.
Two non skippable 15 second commercials midway through the video?!?!? Outrageous.
I guess I'm repeating what others are saying. My airport is Portland International Jetport, PWM. I remember when regionals started and it was to provide more flights per day to like Boston, Newy Your, Philly, etc. These were supposed to help business travelers to get to meeting and back home sooner. They also allowed us to get to a major hub faster and cheaper.
That's why they're more considered "commuter" airlines. It helps add the frequencies in certain markets.
Indeed. The European model are indeed Regional Airlines = flying routes on which not enough customers are to fill a Boeing or an Airbus - or connecting minor airports to the bigger net. So many Major Carrier are owning their Regional Airlines as part of their Group: Lufthansa => Lufthansa Cityline and Air Dolomiti; KLM => KLM Cityhopper; Air France => Air France Hop; British Airways => BA Cityflyer; TAP Air Portugal => Portugallia; Aer Lingus => Aer Lingus Express; Finnair => NORRA; Aegean Airlines => Olympic Air. Only two Major Carrier are using the system to operate with "independent" Regional Airlines in this function: SAS (Scandinavia) with Cityjet (from Ireland) and Xfly (from Estonia) and Iberia with Air Nostrum (both in Spain). And there´re a couple of really independent Regional Airlines in Europe as Petter mentioned, doing there business on their own risk without supporting a Major Carrier: Bra in Sweden, Wideroe in Norway, Binter on the Canary Islands in Spain, Loganair in the UK, Amelia International and Chalair in France; Sprintair in Poland. Helvetic Airways in Switzerland is a mixed Regional Airline, being independent while doing with the half of their fleet Regional Services for Swiss and with the other half on their own risk.
That´s indeed a whole other system as the Commuter Airlines in the US! And I doubt that it will disappear.
At skywest we had a nearly 97% pay increase from around $46 first year FO pay to $90 first year FO pay
A part you miss is business travel drives these routes. Saying 2-3 per day could be one larger aircraft while true doesn’t meet their customer needs. In the US business travel mostly doesn’t include travel days especially for for shorter hauls. Not having a morning and evening option (and with the travelers preferred airline) ruins the model Additionally they augment RJs midday. AA may use an RJ midday for two PHL to BOS and mainline for the numerous morning and evening flights. Frequency is a huge factor you miss. Honestly the work travel dynamic is less intense for same day travel in Europe (not none existent but not as demand driven)
As others have said, a big part of going more often with fewer people is that provide a more convenient schedule, and schedule is a big factor in choosing one airline over another. I think this model will continue for some time, but hopefully the pay gap is addressed.
American airlines is also Using BUS service in place of a regional jet in Eastern Usa...
One thing that you’re missing is stocks. My husband works for a regional carrier. All 3 of the legacy carriers own stock in his company. Not small percentages either. SO even though they’re paying another airline to operate these flights, they’re still getting money from it. Essentially giving themself a discount from the agreed upon price per flight.
You got a lot wrong... A) 86,000 pounds is 43 tons. Not 39.
B) we make great money now at regionals. My airline starts fos at 110 usd/hr. As a captain I make 200.
Feels like you've looked into the dominant east coast airlines and sort of bizarrely ignored the other half of the country? Western states tend to be more sparsely populated and have regional airline models more akin to the European style described. Horizon Air (regional for Alaska Air) even runs a whole fleet of turboprops. Alaskan regional air travel is such a complicated mess of tiny airports and puddle jumpers there's been at least one entire TV series about it. And Hawaii has its own complex thing going on with inter-island travel.
Overall the video is an interesting look at one part of the US but definitely gives off serious "European doesn't quite grasp how big the US is" vibe. A followup about western regional models (and perhaps how they intersect with the more east-biased "big three", since that's often an interesting mess) would be appreciated. If only to make it feel less silly that you didn't mention Alaska a single time when discussing US regional air travel. You know the capital city of Alaska can only be accessed by air or boat, right?
Displays a fundamental misunderstanding of how the US air transportation market developed since the 1970s, very differently than ROW, from 9-seat piston-powered independent commuters to selective interline, to 19 to 30-seat turboprop revenue sharing, to 76-seat EJET Capacity Purchase Agreements proffered by mainline carriers under contractual scope limits, yet operating more than half of domestic departures to both major and smaller cities, carrying higher fare business passengers locally and to and from connecting hubs, on lower trip cost equipment, utilizing labor arbitrage for as long as that lasted, now relying on lower trip costs.
Great video. Living here I see it very differently. I believe the planes you chose to monitor was a small sample and maybe not representative of the majority of the regional jets patterns and the airport sizes they fly into. A lot of smaller cities rely on these regional jets to get to bigger hubs. Some places might be 4-8 hour drives to a big hub. These jets fill the gap and in my experience are always full. Not to mention the gating at the smaller airports would cost a fortune to get them equipped to handle a bigger plane.
as I understood it, he's not saying the regional flights won't be happening, he's saying the airlines might change their business structure.
And the reason that the major airlines don’t just fly smaller jets to those places are because they’ve realized that they can rip off pilots by this artificial division. Hopefully, this scam is coming to an end.
@@rynovoski agreed its like the pilots have to pay the airlines to fly at this point
I think you are also missing the fact that the regionals allow airlines to have more flights at different times of day.
I appreciate your time that it took to make this video..... I can firmly attests that it would seem like a very unusual environment here in the US in regard to air travel.... just a few key points (from someone who's been doing this many years :) )
1) Regional airlines are not "Controlled" by the mainlines.... they BID for contract routes that the Mainlines simply don't want to use their own equipment to fly - this means that if Mesa (for example) bids on a contract route and states they can operate the route for AA (American Airlines) for $100 per person, and AA wants the route covered with the lowest bidder who in this case would be Mesa, then Mesa would most likely get the route for a specified amount of years or based on performance matrix ..... because Mesa does not sell directly to the AA Customer, AA will then decide on the ticket price, taking into account the bid package from Mesa, and then determine a fare to charge, of which $100 is passed onto Mesa... The mainline and Regional also have agreed upon "performance practices" that usually are dictated in a contract of operation at the time the route bid is awarded.
2) All Regional carriers compete with each other in this "bidding of routes". They are also partly responsible for bidding and contracting for gate space, bases for operations, maintenance, etc. Having a Regional do this saves Mainline Carriers Millions of dollars a year for NOT having to deal with such things as they already have their own network established with the more economical aircraft (as you mentioned in your video)
3) Regional pay - Mesa in 2019 would start a newly hired First Officer at $36 per hour.... with a 76 hour per month guarantee.... as of a few months ago, that number is now $100 per hour..... yeah way more than 50% increase - this is due mostly to trying to attract helicopter pilots who are looking to transition from Rotorcraft to Fixed wing flying as well as Part 135 Pilots who also might want to consider moving into a Part 121 Carrier.
4) because a 1500 hour Cessna pilot would qualify to obtain their ATP MEL License in the US (Airline Transport Pilot Multi-Engine Land) - only Part 121 carriers with approved training programs can "Train and Test the pilot candidate for the ATP MEL" - the cost for this was low and the process quick for the Regional Carriers to get FAA approval for these programs... therefore, new pilots who want their ATP MEL license to operate in the US will most always have to go through a Regional carrier to obtain this. This was something that the airlines lobbies our law makers in 2011 and 2012, and in 2014 the amended rules were implemented by the FAA.
5) Every Mainline is represented by various unions..... American Airlines has the Allied Pilots Association, where as Envoy (owned by American) has ALPA (Airline Pilots Association) - nether of these groups intend to merge, and rightfully so mostly due to the Scope Clause that you very clearly explained. Mainline pilots want to feel like their jobs are protected, and it can take years to earn the spot or obtain employment with a Mainline because of the strict criteria that the Unions have help to establish.
6) Regional Airlines have been "upgrading" (or a better term would be "migrating") to the E-175 based on customer satisfaction surveys - the traveling US customer base prefers a aircraft that is a bit larger than the Q400 (and even the CRJ 900) and looks for "comfort" features that the E-175 in the 76 seat configuration provides.... yes the regional could certainly go to E-190's, but would really take the hit for not being able to outfit them with 90 or more seats to make the plane profitable.... also some regional airlines have hardware acquisition agreements in place with the mainlines, where the mainline will purchase an aircraft (such as an E-175) and then lease it to a Regional for operations.
I agree that the term "Regional" is really no longer one that applies here, but to indicate that the Regionals that are still in operation today (Envoy, PSA, Piedmont, Skywest, Republic, Air Wisconsin) could potentially be in danger of no longer existing just doesn't seem to be the case..... during the pandemic, we did see a few carriers fold, and those routes were quickly taken by other carriers.... but this "folding" was purely of financial means.... something you also addressed in your video.
Having the regional airlines "look" like they are part of the Mainline operation is also key to the customer, who in many ways is already fed up with the hassles that air travel can impose... there is a aire of convenience to purchasing a round trip ticket on AA.COM knowing the whole route is serviced by AA or an affiliate.... Breeze is going to have an up hill battle to win over customers in that fashion as many US Travelers who reside in smaller communities serviced by "what looks to be AMERICAN OR UNITED" and are traveling from say Austin TX to New York City, NY, won't want to have to check in for a flight, go through security, get the gate, board the plane, get to DFW, go out to baggage claim, check in to a different carrier's flight, go through security (again), and then get to the gate just to head to NYC.... Breeze and the network they will provide would most likely be more a competitor to the likes of Southwest, Jet Suite X, and XO Jet.
overall some great content.... thank you for sharing your thoughts!
I work in the operations department for a Regional Airline in Europe, Blue islands, we currently have a fleet of 5 ATR72-500. As much as we are looking as expanding our fleet and modernising it. We find the ATR are perfect for what we need around the UK and Europe
Envoy also operates international flights from Miami into the Caribbean using the E175s. These flights are up to three hours long.
Heard one leaving Dominican Republic over the radio few days ago . I was surprised
One other thing to consider is that 1 flight a day to a destination vs 2-3 is less convenient both for flight connections and for day businesses trips. Hence flights will sell better if there is higher frequency on a smaller aircraft.
There are tax implications and subsidies that are attached to these flights, as well.
Yes, true
The US congressmen/congresswomen need those votes from small towns. It's like "Hey look I got this airline to service your small town. Can I have your vote? You won't be inconvenced by taking a slow ass bus ride to an airport far away."
@17:00 Just gonna correct you, although jetblue is getting rid of them, they still operate a significant amount of e190 aircraft
I don’t live in the US but Higher frequency is sometimes nice because if there is a missed connection etc ... and it offers more options for connections. That is also likely why Cathay Pacific used to operate 5 777s with some flights leaving 1hr after another, and around 20 flights to Beijing per day in 320/330s.
American has three wholly owned regional carriers: Envoy, Piedmont, and PSA. Republic, SkyWest, and Mesa Airlines are contracted out by American to fly routes the wholly owned doesn’t fly. Those three are not owned by American.
I used to fly on a small Embraer “United Express” from Modesto to San Francisco, and then on to a bigger plane from San Francisco to wherever. The flight from Modesto to SF took 15-20 minutes. The drive from Modesto to SF took… depending on traffic, which is always horrible, 2.5-3 h.
I loved that short flight in the small plane, (maybe 50 seats or thereabouts), you always got such good views, since the smaller plane was flying much lower than the big jets. It was very noisy, it had propellers. But hey, it saved time and traffic headaches. One year they suddenly stopped the service from the Modesto Airport, it was some years before the pandemic. That was a sad day for me. Back into the road traffic I went!
Yes, somebody here mentioned the smaller plane is more fun, and that’s often the case. You really feel like you’re flying. In a big jet you often don’t even feel like you’re in the air, if you didn’t see clouds you might just think you’re on a train. That’s probably just fine with most passengers, but I always enjoy a bit of rocking and rolling!
Roller coaster without having to wait in line!
@@AndrewSteitz you do wait in line… the TSA line. But after that… pure joy! 🙃
I may or may not have flown one of those tail numbers you stated probably 100 times. Awesome coverage! Amazing grasp on scope clauses and their potential harmful effects that many here are unable to explain so easily.
Well.. legacy airlines operate hub to hub flights. As you already know these hub airports are already at their full capacity. In other words, it is impossible to increase flight numbers at these hub airports. That’s why multiple operations from midsize airports to hub airports are still existing. Therefore, legacy airlines could divide the passenger demands effectively. By doing so, the each legacy airlines can tie their passengers within their operation networks. Even though this strategy would cost more than operating one big aircraft, in a bigger pictures, the legacy airlines get more benefits from this type of operations. Also regional airline companies are still profitable. So at this point, I don’t think regional airlines will be disappeared anytime soon in the US.
Mainline carriers got addicted to the low cost of regional airlines because the labor was cheap. Regional pilots aren't exactly cheap anymore. When I started at a regional the average starting pay was $18 an hour and competition to get hired was pretty fierce. Now if you have a pilots license and a pulse you can easily get $100 an hour as a 1st year FO with some companies practically BEGGING you to come work for them. The regional model is broken, but it is undergoing rapid change. It'll be interesting to see what it all looks like after the dust settles.
One issue not mentioned is that N/A has very poor rail/bus service. The log distance between major airports means that the regions may still be necessary to get people to the major airports.
Having more flights means more flexibility for passengers. This can be especially important when transferring to a different airline.
I've chosen one airline over another several times just because of their additional flights that give me a bigger buffer between flights or allow me to catch ground transportation. Even if it was more expensive to do so. I can't imagine having only one flight a day to choose from, or even one every two days.
I doubt regionals will end. I think the older 50 seater’s like the crj200 and erj140 will mostly be gone as they age, but regionals are profitable for the legacy carriers, they allow more choices in departure times, etc. plus the pay pilots like 1/10 of the salary they would get at a mainline carrier
Nice video. Couple things I would like to add.
Most of the regionals here in the US are based on a “fee for departure” model. In other words the regional airline is getting its cut in money based on the departure of the plane and not the seat sale. So technically i regional could takeoff with no passengers and still see the same revenue compared that same aircraft fully loaded. With that said, the regional is unable to cover its increase in payroll by simple increasing its ticket costs, they have no control over that.
I won’t name companies but some are threatening bankruptcy, while not confirmed, due to this issue. This is only furthering the idea that regional airlines might be out the door sooner than later.
One thin to also keep in mind, while as of now the regional pay rates and major pay rates are close, and in even some cases better, the majors always have the option to raise the pay scale on that side. Maybe in the near future we will see that regional airlines all of a sudden are still a cheaper alternative simply because the major airlines are offering even higher pay than regionals once more. This seems to be the road we are going down considering the Alaskan airline deal and multiple airlines are threatening strikes. Time will tell.
The regional airlines have many purposes here in the United States. The "regional jets" are specific in size and passenger loads not exceeding a certain number. Without breaking out the FAA FAR's and union clauses, I believe it's airplanes less than 100 seats and connects smaller city/airports to the big airline hubs. Another big reason is it's the stepping stone for airline employees (pilots, maintainers, cabin crews and such) to get experience and compete to get into the majors and make more money. This is unfortunate and I wish these regionals would go mainstream (pay as well) and hold their own and compete with the majors, especially on shorter flights with better service on the smaller airplanes. When I fly Delta, my preference as a passenger is 757's, if not on my flight schedule, I prefer the regionals CRJ700/900 or ERJ170/175, then the A220 or 717 (A220 and 717 are mainline, not regional). I prefer the 757 for reliability, BUT, like these smaller airplanes (110 seats and less) due to faster load/unload times and better cabin service. BUT, the regional jets inflight WiFi (unreliable) and lack of inflight entertainment are a negative for some of those rare times I fly out west for up to 2 hours in a regional jet. I believe regional sized airline specific fleets in a main line airline would draw a huge crowd. I definitely would look at flying with an airline that specifically flew a fleet of airplanes lees than 100 seats due to reasons mentioned above. And if they have a fleet that flies cross country, I'd fly them as long as the seating was comfortable and the inflight entertainment and WiFi was reliable.
that was an interesting look into it as I have never flown regional, My last regional trip was Philadelphia to Boston and I took the Acela train for that.
Very often, hopping on an American Eagle flight you will only see a half to 3/4 full flight. The “regional” routes don’t have very many people flying the routes. Also, Republic Airways is based in my hometown and they just built a massive flight school, building a huge headquarters, a fairly large sim training facility and just bought land to build a new flight school down south. I don’t think Republic is going anywhere anytime soon
I would also imagine that culture plays a large role. Turboprop planes are viewed as antiqued technology by the US general public. Even 25 years ago, it was very rare to see a turboprop passenger plane.
No it wasn't. Turbo props were everywhere in the late 90s early 2000s
And they are loud and slow.
They still exist alaska horizon still operate a bunch of q400s
David Needleman also assisted in the Founding of Westjet in Canada and Assul in South America.
He's a smart cookie, been around the block a few times!
The biggest open secret in the industry is that the A220-300 and Embraer E2-195 have similar (if not better) fuel burn per seat to a 737MAX7 or A319neo, and they are much nicer to fly in the cabin. Airlines like KLM, Air Canada, Air Baltic, Qantas and Air France have figured this out. So have Breeze and Delta.
Yea they'd be much more popular in the US, it's Pilot Union contract stipulations that keep them out "weight requirements".
also, as a former ramp worker I can say the E-175 is a gorgeous plane to be a passenger on....but a nightmare to deal with as a ramp agent. those cargo holds are ridiculous!
Surely it’s also more convenient for travelers when more flights are offered.
Yes it is, and don’t call me Shirley.
Comparing US regional sizes to European ones isn't really valid; remember, all of Europe can fit into the half of the continental US east of the Mississippi River. Also, Europe's rail system is vastly superior, shorter, cheaper, and faster than Joketrak so they can absorb regional passengers more easily.
I found it interesting that due to Dallas-Fort Worth being a hub (as well as Phoenix) that I flew from Phoenix, Arizona to Daytona Beach, Florida and both legs were on a CRJ-900. Probably happens frequently but it's the first time I flew nearly all the way across the USA in only regional jets.
i find that we're doing that more often. I know there are a lot of unbid (ie vacant) slots at mainline right now. The need is real.
@@genxer74 In all reality I didn't mind the 2 legs cross country on a CRJ--I kind of prefer them due to 2-2 seating and much faster boarding and deplaning.
Didn't even mention the largest regional carrier in the US. Skywest Airlines is poised to take over all the other regional airline routes one by one. Skywest operates flights in many areas that do not have the runway or airport capacity to handle mainline aircraft. Regionals such as Skywest aren't going anywhere any time soon.
The most charming aspect of flying on a regional jet here is being stuck on an old CRJ with a/c condensation dripping on you from the ceiling panels.
United's new CRJ550 layout is has been a nice surprise, but there is still a huge room for improved service quality.
I'm hoping the Breeze's of the world and new planes like Embraer's turboprop will provide another option on these routes.
It will sure be interesting to see!
The CRJ550 is a CRJ700 with 50 seats. The first 550s WERE 700s, that were re-certified.
@@SpyGeorgilis Yes, and?
@@eheis5 And it kind of demonstrates the problem here. The only reason the 550 exists, is to satisfy the letter of the 50-seat segment of the scope clause (sort of -- there's an MTOW waiver). There are no 550s outside the US. These jets only make sense because there is no true modern 50-seater out there. Unless Embraer's planned turboprop covers it... sometime, maybe.
Good lessons were taught in this video and much that I agree with in the top comments, but one thing that I don't agree with is the premise that the regional airlines exist to cut labor costs. Regionals have been around for many decades, long before the workforce challenges we have had the last few years. There are many, many other reasons that they exist and I don't think labor shifts are enough to make major airlines absorbing "regional" operations appealing.