FSX-MS Recommendations for regional payware aircraft.

[scianoir 610]

5 hours ago, KrisJ said:

So you say E-jet is regional but 717 not?

The definition of a regional airliner has definitely become blurred in recent years primarily because of the overlap in passenger capacity between the largest E-jets such as the E-195 and the smallest of the mainline shrinks such as the 717, 318, etc. Although I guess it’s a matter of semantics, most of us purists would probably consider regional aircraft as those that have been developed from scratch to comply with the so-called scope clauses which limit the passenger capacity to a figure acceptable to the mainline pilot unions. These would include the ERJ series, the E-Jets, CRJs etc as well as the various turboprop airliners. 

It’s interesting however to remember that when regional airliners and third level (commuter) airlines first came on the scene in a big way in the late 60s and early 70s most of their aircraft were little more than 20-30 seat capacity. However in those days many aircraft operated by the mainline airlines were also much smaller, with most of the early short to medium range jets being under or just over 100 passenger capacity. Over subsequent years however the general scale of airline operations both regional and mainline has steadily increased which has tended to blur the borderline even more. 

Whatever definition of regional airliner you subscribe to however, the good news for Flight simmers is the variety of quality aircraft available today which fit that category.

Bill

[KrisJ 43]

The unions/ capacity aspect you bring is specific to US so it cannot be used as a criteria for assesment if a equipment is regional by design or not. Regional jets are operated also in other parts of a world 🙂

There were multiple articles, especially in Business press, describing value of 717 as a regional plane which came from airline officials. 

Anyway, Yep, the more good addons we have the better.

[ckyliu 1,749]

@KrisJ I agree with what Bill said above, to many a regional aircraft is one that was designed as such from the outset and has the associated cost base. The reason the B736 and A318 have sold so poorly is because they're not really regionals even if the seating capacity is borderline within the category; costs for staffing, maintenance and airport fees are broadly similar to what you'd pay for their bigger mainline brothers which defeats the point of a regional airliner. With mainline shrinks you're losing seating capacity without much cost saving. As Bill said the category has grown though, I don't think twenty years ago anything in excess of 100 seats would have been considered regional.

To my mind Operating Empty Weight (OEW) and MTOW are good indicator of a true regional airliner, in addition to purchase and running costs. An A318 OEW is 39.5 tonnes with a MTOW of 65.5 tonnes; a 736 is similarly 36.3 and 65.5t. Compare those to the E195 at 28.6t and 52.3t which makes it over 20% lighter despite seating capacity being within 10% of the mainline shrinks. The Fokker 100 and Avro RJ are even lighter at around 25t OEW each, the CRJ1000 is just 23t although the payload and cabin are small.

Bringing the 717 in to the equation I think it sold better by virtue of being available earlier with less competition and cheaper fuel, and longer range suiting intercontinental North American thin routes. Weight wise it's lighter than the aforementioned shrinks at 30.6t OEW and 49.8t MTOW and also benefiting from the smaller BR715 engine, although still over 2 tonnes shy of an E-Jet, so perhaps you could get away with classifying it as a regional jet.

On these definitions it's debatable if the CSeries is really a proper regional aircraft, it's much heavier than the MRJ, SSJ, An-158, ARJ21 and E2. I suppose the proof will be in how it is used and its running costs.

Edited July 19, 2018 by ckyliu

[KrisJ 43]

Add to that low hanging fuselage, mounted stairs and quick operating turnaround times while on ground.

And i agree re 736 and 318. Its like B747SP is still a widebody longhaul jetliner No matter how silly it looks like 🙂

[scianoir 610]

On 7/19/2018 at 10:32 AM, KrisJ said:

The unions/ capacity aspect you bring is specific to US so it cannot be used as a criteria for assesment if a equipment is regional by design or not. Regional jets are operated also in other parts of a world 🙂

In my part of the world (Europe) there are also scope type agreements with various pilot’s unions in terms of the maximum capacity of regional airliners operated by franchise carriers. For example the Stobart Air operation for Aer Lingus Regional is limited to airliners of no more than 74 seats and I’m sure similar agreements exist with pilot’s unions in airlines like SAS (for the City Jet CRJ operation), Lufthansa (for BMI regional operation), Iberia (for Air Nostrum), etc.

However the factor that first spurred on the development of regional jets was the existence of the scope agreements in the USA which, if I remember correctly, were once even more restrictive than they are today which is why the early regional jets, the CRJ-100 and ERJ-145 were designed to seat no more than 50 passengers. As the restrictions relaxed somewhat however manufacturers responded to a market for larger regional aircraft and as these grew in size they eventually started to almost overlap with the smaller versions of the mainline jets. Many of the largest regional jets however have much larger capacity than the various scope clauses permit so these tend to be operated by independent carriers rather than under franchise agreements with so-called mainlne carriers. With regard to the 717, I’m sure Boeing saw an opportunity, given the booming sales of small jets at the time, to jump on the bandwagon and market it as a regional jet and that makes a lot of commercial sense.

I am not sure if there ever was a definition of a regional airliner but I suspect the term ‘regional’ came either from the fact that the original commuter or third level airlines for which these aircraft were designed were confined to operating within a geographic region or because they operated to regional (non-mainline) airports. The bottom line is that if there ever was an arbitrary definition of a regional airliner then that has by now become very blurred indeed!🙂

Bill

Edited July 20, 2018 by scianoir