Originally Posted by
3Cforme
If you think a big piece of the AA regional fleet going forward has to be Q400s or ERJ-145s you are, IMHO, setting the bar way too low. They won't be able to get enough pilots to fly low productivity aircraft (seat count, lack of premium cabins) at the wages they'll want to pay. AA may need 100-150 aircraft smaller than E75/CR7 in order to maintain decent frequency of service to destinations where people pay a premium, but not hundreds and hundreds. The time for that is well past.
I am not sure where I seem to imply otherwise?
Basically my conclusion was:
-Q400s not happening
-Envoy will continue to wind down their E-145 fleet aggressively through transfers and retirements replacing them with E-175s (36 on order with 90 options)
-Piedmont will get another significant batch of E-145s from Envoy (20?)
-Piedmont will retire the Dash 8-100/300s
In the end, I agree with you. The days of the domestic US market being dominated by single cabin aircraft is coming to an end.