Originally Posted by prhs1989
Hate to break the news to you, but every hub now has just about as many small planes flying as they do mainline. Have you been to Newark lately. All I ever see landing there are Continental's Expressjets. They are also having the same problems at ORD with too many express flights operated by United and American. The sad news is that those little "puddle-jumpers" have become just as vital to airlines as the mainline flights, so get used to seeing a lot more little planes.
Prior to the transition to FlyI, ACA operated more flights in and out of IAD than UA did. UA's flight schedule was controlled by UA. I would gather that not much has changed over there, and that UAX still has more daily flights than UA. Outside of some FL markets and BOS, I'm hard pressed to think of any other cities that UA serves with mainline jets up and down the east coast.
Everybody talks about the "expensive" RJ's and the "cheap" mainline jets, but the sad truth is that the airlines are forced to sell their mainline seats cheaply to get them filled.... Low CASM with empty seats doesn't work too well. Airlines MUST operate with some sort of schedule to attract pax... flying once a day with 200 seats is not equivalent to flying 4 times per day with 50 seats.