Airlines cut small jets as fuel prices soar-leaving some little cities with fewer flights (or none)

[The Straight Story]

Airlines cut small jets as fuel prices soar

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The little planes that connect America’s small cities to the rest of the world are slowly being phased out.

Airlines are getting rid of these planes — their least-efficient — in response to the high cost of fuel. Delta, United Continental, and other big airlines are expected to park, scrap or sell hundreds of jets with 50 seats or fewer in coming years. Small propeller planes are meeting the same fate.

The loss of those planes is leaving some little cities with fewer flights or no flights at all.

The Airports Council International says 27 small airports in the continental U.S., including St. Cloud, Minn., and Oxnard, Calif., have lost service from well-known commercial airlines over the last two years. More shutdowns are planned.

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2011/11/25/airlines-cut-small-jets-as-fuel-prices-soar/

[lib2DaBone]

1. and at the same time.. Republicans are staunchly against High Speed Rail...

I you even mention high-speed rail.. Republicans go ballistic.

So if we can't have commuter airlines.... (and the Repukes wont allow high speed rail).. and we are unable to repair the bridges and roads.... how are we supposed to get from small towns to the big airports?

The conservative mindset has yet to contemplate this. The same as when Alabama and Georgia passed all their anti-immigration hate laws.. and now their crops lie rotting in the fields...

I guess there is always the horse and buggy.

[Fumesucker]

2. You get there as God intended..

Drive your car.

It's in the Bible, or maybe Atlas Shrugged, I get them confused.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

5. So if a community can't support airline service in say a CRJ-700...

How can high speed rail service be justified at tens of millions of dollars per mile when trains seat 300+ passengers?

[JVS]

3. bigger planes are only more efficient if they can fill them

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

6. Small regional jets aren't efficient empty or full

And the "fee for departure" operating model utilized by airlines makes it very difficult to even break even. Airlines rushed out and replaced some of the most efficient turboprop airliners ever built with these pigs and outsourced their operation on a cost-plus basis which saves little money.

[Populist_Prole]

12. IIRC, RJ's have a higher seat/mile cost than "real" airliners

The appeal to the airlines was as "scope busters" for unionized pilots of the main airlines, due to the pay being MUCH much less. Obviously you're not going to fly a 737 or A-320 into East Fencepost USA with any type of sustainable load factor, so RJ's have a place, but they were being used to increasingly encroach on the main airline's route system.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

4. Oxnard is barely 40 minutes from Santa Barbara Airport

A lot of these cities are more distant suburbs than isolated outposts,

[geardaddy]

7. St. Cloud is 70 some miles from MSP

http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Airport+near+Saint+Cloud,+MN&daddr=MSP,+Glumack+Drive,+Saint+Paul,+MN&hl=en&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=36.094886,56.337891&geocode=FTz8tgIdj8Jk-iEoPpd4UYhVpg%3BFbXerAIdBrVx-iGRNXh4fNPTKw&vpsrc=0&mra=ls&t=m&z=9

We now have a commuter train that was supposed to go from St. Cloud to downtown Minneapolis, but the Goopers wouldn't let it go through. Now it stops in Big Lake, MN which is nowheresville.

[CTyankee]

11. Even here in CT we have a problem. I live in New Haven and our little

airport is just too expensive to even think about using. I drive to the Hartford/Springfield airport one hour away or get a limo to JFK which takes a LONG time to reach...it's been this way since I moved here in 1985...

[NuttyFluffers]

8. but our country is too big for electric trains! too big, i say!

electric anything = flexible fuel source

fixed fuel anything = closed market ripe for mono/oligopoly

hmm... whatever to do, whatever to do?

[Sgent]

9. -What's wrong with turboprops?

They are a little slower (still do 200+ mph), and noisier -- but cost a HUGE amount less to operate. And many of the small cities only need service to the nearest hub, which might be 2-3 hours by driving but only a 45-60 min flight.

[jmowreader]

10. What's wrong with them is the propellers

The airline industry has done such a good job of demonizing the turboprops--because they can charge more for regional jet tickets, probably--that it would be very, very hard to go back.

[Populist_Prole]

14. I find a Dash 8 more comfortable than an RJ. Roomier.

No propeller-phobia here, but some inexplicably have it.

[Art_from_Ark]

15. The regional jets I have flown in have all had a smoother ride than the props

Quieter, too. And those old propeller planes were pretty cramped

[KamaAina]

13. Pretty soon it's going to be impossible to get anywhere that isn't a major metro

without a vroom-vroom. (:

Greyhound has been slashing service left and right, leaving not only small towns but mid-sized ones like Bloomington, Ind. in the lurch. And, I am told, what service remains has declined in quality to what one would once have expected in a developing country.