Regional Jets Are Making a Big Splash

Mike Allen’s travel agent had given him two options: Drive an hour to one airport for a $250 flight to Chicago, or drive two hours to a different airport and pay nearly twice that.

“Easiest decision I made all week,” the 43-year-old real estate developer said recently as he stood in line at Yeager Airport here. Then he boarded his flight--the more expensive, less convenient one.

The first option, Allen learned, would have meant a ride on the longtime workhorse of the nation’s rural air routes: a turboprop plane. The second involved a regional jet, an aircraft that is quietly changing the nature of air travel in the United States.

For decades, the turboprop--that “puddle-jumper” with the ear-splitting propeller-driven engines--has been connecting smaller towns with major airports, ferrying 20 or 30 passengers at a time in bumpy, slow-speed, mild discomfort.

Long loathed by weary travelers for its claustrophobic confines and yesteryear ride, the turboprop is being unceremoniously replaced by regional jets, or RJs--diminutive aircraft that fly as high, as fast and as smoothly as a full-size 737 or MD-80.

“People just love these airplanes,” said Rick DeLisi of Atlantic Coast Airlines, which operates 28 regional jets for Delta Connection and United Express. “They like flying in them. They like talking about them. . . . They don’t seem to miss the turboprops much.”

For years airlines have struggled with the problem of transporting passengers to and from such places as Charleston; Fargo, N.D.; Portland, Maine--towns with enough passengers to warrant daily flights but not enough to regularly fill full-size jets. As a result, passengers had to stuff themselves into turboprops for a hop--or two hops--to the nearest hub.

In 1992, bucking conventional wisdom, officials at the Cincinnati-based regional carrier Comair told Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier Aerospace that they believed a small jet could indeed turn a profit--and at the same time perhaps open up new routes. Bombardier executives were persuaded, and they built the first jet of an entirely new class, the 50-seat Canadair Regional Jet.

The plane could fly several times as far as the average turboprop, which seldom travels more than 300 miles. It could cruise at 500 miles per hour instead of 300. And it could climb to 41,000 feet instead of about 25,000, which allowed it more flexibility in avoiding turbulence and at the same time increased fuel efficiency in the thinner air.

At about $20 million apiece, however, the Bombardier craft cost about twice as much as a new turboprop. And despite the high-altitude fuel savings, they were considerably more expensive to fly.

Many observers were skeptical about the economics of the experiment. And growth, at first, was slow.

In 1993, just 29 regional jets were flying in the U.S., according to the Regional Airline Assn. The next year, there were still only 50.

But as Comair succeeded--and continued to purchase planes--other regional carriers began to follow suit, as did manufacturers. By 1999, 394 regional jets made by several companies were crisscrossing the U.S. The total is expected to reach 600 by the end of this year.

The Federal Aviation Administration predicts there will be as many regional jets as turboprops by 2010, about 1,500 of each. Meanwhile, Comair expects to have done away with turboprops entirely by the end of 2001, Continental Express by 2003, American Eagle by 2005.

In addition to providing faster, more comfortable service, the jets have allowed airlines to expand their hubs. They’ve opened new direct routes from Washington Dulles to Savannah, Ga., for example, and from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to Cincinnati--a trip that used to require connecting through Chicago’s famously congested O’Hare International.

Indeed, a third of new RJs go to create brand new nonstop routes.

Half a century after jet engines were first strapped to an airplane--too late to help the Luftwaffe save Hitler’s Germany--jet aircraft are still perceived as the cream of the air crop. And small- and medium-sized airports from coast to coast are scrambling to acquire regular regional jet service.

“For smaller cities, it’s a real status symbol to have jet service,” said airline stock analyst Jim Parker. “It’s a big thing for civic leaders, who use it to help lure businesses and tourists.”

The biggest obstacle to further growth of regional jet service will be so-called scope clauses, agreements between pilot unions and major carriers that restrict the number of smaller planes the airline can operate. Commuter pilots earn less than those flying full-size jets, and the unions want to make sure the carriers do not shift loads to smaller craft in an effort to cut costs.

Still, the number of departures of RJs rose from 7.6% to more than 11% of all jet departures over the last year. Models with as few as 32 seats now fly, helping expand their reach into even the smallest of markets. And a 70-seater is due out next year, with a 90-passenger craft likely to follow.

For the first time ever, a jet model, the CRJ, now provides more total passenger seats than any turboprop model.

Regional carriers flying the new jets have discovered an additional, unexpected benefit to the craft--their ability to attract top young pilots at a time when many carriers are scrambling to replace a wave of retiring military-trained fliers. Traditionally, new pilots have had to pay their dues in the less-glamorous propeller-driven craft, and the lure of quickly commanding one of the mini-jets has made it easier to recruit and retain pilots, several regional carriers say.

So, as the European Airbus Industrie group is designing the gargantuan A3XX, which would seat 800 people, and Boeing is considering a larger version of its 747 to compete, it is a smaller, not bigger, class of airplanes that is delighting frequent fliers like Allen, the real estate developer.

“These things are terrific,” he said with a yawn after landing in Chicago. “I slept the whole way. When’s the last time you did that on a puddle-jumper?”

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A Better Way to Fly?

Regional jets are surpassing turboprop “puddle-jumpers” as the transport of choice for regional air travel. The jets commonly fly faster, farther and quieter than the smaller prop planes. Here’s a comparison of common aircraft in each category:

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Increase in Jets

The Regional Airline Assn. expects the number of regional jets flying in the U.S. to number 600 by the end of the year.

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2000*: 600

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* Projected

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Sources: Bombardier Aerospace, Embraer, Regional Airline Assn., Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft