Is This the DEATH of the US Regional Airlines?!

Are we seeing the beginning of the end of he Regional Airlines in the United States? In this video I will lay down the reasons I think this might be happening, including strange Union deals, pilot shortage and the use of outdated aircraft.
I would love to hear what YOU think about my theory. Let me know in the comments below.

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Below you will find the links to videos and sources used in this episode. Enjoy checking them out!

videos

Articles

chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:27 What is a regional Airline
02:12 Mentours Observation
02:40 Reason 1
04:18 Reason 2
06:50 Reason 3
08:10 Scope Clause
09:40 What is the reason?
11:25 Oh, the absurdity!
12:47 A change is coming
13:39 So, what does it mean?

[lisanadinebaker]

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

[stevewausa]

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?

[cidertom]

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.

[MilhouseBS]

Short security lines are nice at small airports.

[Randrew]

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.

[cosmoillenberger]

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.

[hodag]

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.

[michaelogden]

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. 🙂

[johnaustin]

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).

[dmitripogosian]

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.

[USNveteran]

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!!!

[wiryantirta]

"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.

[thecomedypilot]

I don't think regionals are going away. Honestly, you only looked at <1% of flights that those Embraers fly to. Many of these regional jets do fly into very small airports. Plus, pilots upgrade to the major airlines very quickly after the regionals. Also also, with all the hundreds of regional jets the airlines own, they're not just going to phase ALL of them out...

[happycows]

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

[k]

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.

[dm]

Just started at a US regional airline last week. Great timing!

[prestonkey]

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.

[thetrainhopper]

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.

[mwilk]

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.

[imaPangolin]

There is one important point missing. That is that the us market demands frequency. If you replace the regional with mainline you lose frequency.