As much as Boeing and Airbus would like to think so, they don’t.  If anything, I think they’ll promote the CSeries and I think they’ll encourage Embraer to go bigger. 

Look at the seat numbers on these aircraft.  The A319 and 737-700 seat roughly 135 or more passengers.  The A318 is a very poor candidate for the NEO and the 737-600 really isn’t offered anymore.  Neither works for mainline service very well because they’re heavy for the number of passengers they carry and their range just isn’t needed for routes requiring those passenger numbers.

Sub-130 seat routes aren’t going to be long and thin transcontinental routes.  To the contrary.  They’ll be the routes they are today and the routes we see developing even now.  They’ll be from Wichita, Kansas to St. Louis or Knoxville, TN to Chicago.  

And there is no airliner being offered that quite gets the airlines there. 

Airlines such as Southwest realize that a smaller airliner is probably necessary for growth now that they have the nation’s largest cities essentially covered.  Boeing and Airbus don’t make that airliner and they don’t plan to make that airliner.  But it’s needed.

And Bombardier is making the aircraft.  Embraer is considering what to do next when it comes to either re-engining its E series aircraft or building a new airliner (and I think they’ll build a stretched E195 with new engines, frankly.

An airliner series with practical passenger capacities ranging from 90 to 130 seats is just what these airlines need.  And legacy and SuperLegacy airlines will need them too if they don’t get their pilots to agree to revised scope clauses.

That leads us to another reason why that class of aircraft is needed.  Even if the legacy and SuperLegacy airlines get pilots to agree to new scope clauses that permit them to engage regional airlines for that 90 to 130 seat flying, somebody has to buy the aircraft and fly them. 

ERJ-140 and CRJ-200 aircraft are not going to be practical going forward.  They’ll hang on for a bit longer but they are going away because they are fuel inefficient and they’re getting old to boot.

Now that airlines know what is going to happen with both the Airbus A320 series and Boeing 737 series aircraft, they can start shopping for that next class of aircraft that permits entry into those smaller markets cost effectively.

Filed under: Airline Fleets by ajax