CRJ200 routes
 

I thought DL had eliminated the CRJ200 from all but smaller "feeder" routes. Yesterday I was treated to one from DTW - GRB. It continued on from GRB - MSP.
I switched from CWA to GRB to avoid this.... My own fault for not paying attention.

It's a shift in the competitive landscape. GRB service under Northwest used to be all mainline. Everyone knows if you want a decent fare you drive to Milwaukee where Southwest provides a lot of competition.

You misunderstood. Delta's press release - and implemented plan - took single class planes CRJ-200 and ERL-145 off from longer domestic routes, anything over 750 miles. GRB-MSP is shown as 252 miles by Great Circle Mapper.

Jun 10, 2010

ATLANTA, June 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) today announced a major enhancement of its domestic schedule, with plans to make First Class service available on all domestic flights longer than 750 miles, or about two and one-half hours of flight time, beginning this fall.

MSP and DTW to CWA are pretty much exactly what DL said they were going to do with the CRJ200's.

Unless they went to only once daily on a 900 or a 717 the CRJ200 is it for small markets like Wausau.

And with most places if there is only once daily service it tends to have 1 flight out in the very early morning to the hub, and one flight back very late.

Then you get the lovely situation where you get to fly in the night before to CWA for the next day's meeting, and then you have to either drive to another airport or hang around another night to catch the once daily departure at 6AM.

Seems to me that an hour on a 200 beats two nights in Wausau!

MSP-GRB is 1xCRJ, 2xCR9 and 1xMD90.

DTW-GRB is 1xCRJ, 1xCR9 and 1x717.

In other words, it's perfectly possible to avoid the CRJ flight if you're flexible on time. But if you're not flexible on time, then you should probably be glad Delta isn't just flying 2x or 3x on bigger planes and dropping the CRJ all together.

I flew OKC- MSP on an RJ this fall and it sucked. But I wasn't flexible enough to take the early or late CR9 flight and was glad the mid-morning CRJ was an option.

YMMV

Why are you picking on Wausau? It has some nice highways that enable you to avoid going into the place. If one had to go there, it would make more sense to drive to/from Minneapolis/St Paul (less than three hours, depending on your specific destination in the Twin Cities area) than to drive east to Green Bay (an hour and a half to two hours since there's construction on the roads toward the airport) in order to fly west to MSP. GRB has a nice new little airport, presumably with relatively cheap parking, but I wouldn't go out of my way to fly from there.

From Wausau, you could also drive to MSN in order to get mainline service to MSP and DTW.

Isn't it "fun" when you don't pay attention and put yourself in an airplane that you can't stand? I booked F on ATL-SFO last month and didn't pay attention to the aircraft... What a "surprise" to end up on a 767-300... Brutal. I'm paying much closer attention these days, looks like you are too!:D

I've been to Wausau, it's not a bad place, just not a lot to do if you have to spend an extra day in town. I'm from a small town in Northern MN. I don't need anymore small town charm.

I was merely illustrating that with x2 daily 200 service one can have a meeting in the afternoon, spend one night and fly out in the AM, instead of having to either drive at least 90 minutes to another airport, or spend 2 nights there.

The most egregious use of CRJ-200s IMO is CVG-MSP. That's a 600 mile, 1.5+ hour flight.

I can deal with them on shorter routes, but small RJs between two hubs is a bit ridiculous.

I think DL still calling CVG a hub is a bit more ridiculous :D

Agreed. In IRROPS, I got rebooked from direct BOS-MSP to BOS-CVG-MSP. Got the UG on BOS-CVG then had a lovely CRJ CVG-MSP than parked at the end of the A concourse. Bad times all around.

I hate the CRJ. I book away from them if at all possible.

But UA and AA still fly 50 seaters (albeit many are 1-2 config) on long flights. At least DL only insists on torturing you for 1 hour.

You don't consider DTW-GRB a feeder route? :confused: That is just the kind of city pairing that the regional jet was designed for.

DL does fly routes longer than one hour on the 50 seater. There was a thread about it a few months back.

Even though it was nearly two hours (and I hated every minute of it), it would be great it DL brought back the SLC-SBA 50 seater. If it's either that or nothing, I'd take it.

I've never understood the hate for the CRJ. At least it's not a turboprop. The CRJ can at least get you out of the bad weather. The turboprops have to fly through it. I remember an aunt telling me about taking a flight in an old DC-6 in Panama. There was a hole in the ceiling and someone was holding a bucket above the pilot's head to keep the rain water from drilling on him. So don't complain too much about regional jets.