SN Brussels Airlines Avro RJ85 regional jet A regional jet (RJ) is a small jet aircraft that was intended to fly passengers from point to point as efficiently as possible. They are quickly evolving into the aircraft of choice for most domestic operations. They range in seating from 35 - 100 seats. They are often operated by commuter airlines. SN Brussels Airlines Avro RJ-85 regional jet lands at London (Heathrow) Airport. ...
SN Brussels Airlines Avro RJ-85 regional jet lands at London (Heathrow) Airport. ...
Jet aircraft are aircraft with jet engines. ...
A Commuter airline is an airline that flies to smaller communities, often linking smaller communities to a larger regional hub. ...
History
In the early days of the hub-and-spoke model of airline operations in the immediate post-WWII era, a huge number of war-surplus DC-3's were available at very low costs. While there were a number of designs with much better operational costs, it wasn't until the mid to late 1950s when the DC-3 was becoming too expensive to maintain for passenger use that airlines started looking for newer models. Many of the DC-3's were passed on to freight operations, while a series of turboprop aircraft took over their market, the Vickers Viscount being one particularly successful example. German soldiers at the Battle of Stalingrad World War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world, involving the great majority of the worlds nations, being fought simultaneously in several major theatres, and costing tens of millions of lives. ...
Douglas DC-3 VH-AES at Avalon in 2003. ...
A Turboprop or turboshaft engine is a type of gas turbine. ...
The Viscount was a medium-range turboprop airliner introduced in 1953 by Vickers-Armstrongs, making it the first such aircraft to enter service in the world. ...
Beginning in the early 1960s, commercial air passengers began traveling on jet-powered aircraft with seating capacity from about 70 passengers to over 300. While these new jet-powered aircraft were a great stride forward and were popular in comparison to propellor aircraft, some of these jet aircraft were too large to be economical on shorter routes or on routes between smaller communities and the "mega-hubs" of the major FAR 121 carriers. Events and trends The 1960s was a turbulent decade of change around the world. ...
The Federal Aviation Regulations, or FARs, are rules prescribed by the Federal Aviation Administration governing all aviation activities in the United States. ...
In the early 1980s, with the advent of deregulation, these earlier generation airliners operated by the existing previously regulated FAR 121 carriers, became more expensive to operate to these smaller communities compared to a group of new airline operators, many operating initially under FAR 135 rules. These new entrants operating very small 10-19 seat turboprop equipment such as the Beechcraft 99, SA-226/227 Metroliner, the BAE 3200 Jetstream, and later the Beech 1900 had much lower overall cost structures that particularly suited these shorter routes and grew very quickly. These new entrants, and in many cases their larger major airline partners, asked manufacturers to design and build a new generation of short-range turbine powered aircraft. de Havilland Canada was in a particularly good position at this point, having just introduced a new aircraft with very low operational costs, the de Havilland Canada Dash 8, which soon took over a good portion of the market. Upset by this "upstart", a number of larger aviation firms decided to enter the market, and by the late 1980s the turboprop-powered market included the ATR 42 and ATR 72 from the Avion de Transport Régional consortium, Dornier 328, Jetstream 41 and Saab 340. This surplus of designs resulted in the market saturating in a very short time once the earlier 1950s designs were replaced. Today only the DASH-8 continues in production, albeit a much larger version. Events and trends The 1980s marked an abrupt shift towards more conservative lifestyles after the momentous cultural revolutions which took place in the 1960s and 1970s and the definition of the AIDS virus in 1981. ...
de Havilland Canada was once an innovative aircraft manufacturer with facilities based in Toronto, Ontario. ...
A twin-turbo DHC-8-400 of Flybe on the ground at Bristol Airport, Bristol, England The de Havilland Canada DHC-8, popularly the Dash 8, is a series of twin-turboprop airliners designed by de Havilland Canada in the early 1980s. ...
Categories: Stub | International airliners 1980-1989 ...
The ATR 72 is a twin-turboprop short-haul regional airliner built in France by the ATR company (Avions de Transport gional). ...
Eastern Airways BAe Jetstream 41 The Jetstream 41 is a turboprop-powered feederliner and regional airliner, originally designed by British Aerospace as a stretched version of the popular Handley Page Jetstream. ...
The SAAB 340 typically seats between 33 and 37 passengers. ...
Many air passengers were not satisfied with propeller aircraft for a number of reasons. Such airplanes are slower than jets, they typically do not have air conditioning available during enplaning and deplaning operations. They in most cases cannot be connected to a jetway, have significantly reduced cabin size, may lack a flight attendant and an on-board lavatory. Performance issues include the inability to load a full complement of passengers when high fuel loads are required due to weather and air traffic delays. Yet these new small airline companies, conscious of their need to survive economically and provide a financial return to their owners, promoted the use of small tubine powered propellor commuter aircraft on routes extending to smaller cities. What was needed were more efficient small jet aircraft to fill a new niche, long routes with fewer passengers.
The first widely successful regional jet design was the Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ) (CL 600) in the early 1990s, which soon started replacing almost all other new aircraft purchases for these new regional airlines. The CRJ's range is enough to fill mid-range routes as well, routes previously served by larger aircraft such as the Boeing 737 and DC-9. The aircraft are very efficient and they were originally intended to be used for direct airport-to-airport flights, bypassing the whole hub-and-spoke design entirely. The Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ) is a small Canadian airliner based originally on the Canadair Challenger business jet. ...
737 in new Boeing Colors. ...
The Douglas DC-9 is a twin-engined jet airliner, first manufactured in 1965 and, in much modified form and under a succession of different names, still in production today as the Boeing 717. ...
As with the 1970s/'80s turboprops, the CRJ soon found itself with competition. To date the main competition has been the Embraer EMB-145, and the two designs have since been in hot competition, with some highly charged political wrangling as a result. Fairchild Dornier introduced the 328JET to compete, but went bankrupt soon afterwards. A fourth design from a consortium of Sukhoi, Ilyushin, and Boeing never materialized, and a Fokker-ERNO design ended when Fokker went bankrupt before the design was finalized. Bombardier, unlike with Shorts, Canadair, de Havilland and LearJet, when offered Fokker, turned the offer to purchase it down, and the design forcasted to replace the shelved BRJX died with Fokker. It appears that the "oversupply" situation of the '80s will not occur, leaving the market to be divided up by Canadair and Embraer. The Embraer ERJ 145 is a twin-engined regional jet plane with 50 seats. ...
Sukhoi (Сухой) is a major Russian military fighter aircraft manufacturer. ...
Ilyushin (Russian: Илью́шин) is a Russian (formerly Soviet) aircraft manufacturer (design office prefix Il), founded by Sergey Vladimirovich Ilyushin. ...
The Boeing Company ( NYSE: BA) is a leading American aircraft and aerospace manufacturer, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, with its largest production facilities in Everett, Washington, near Seattle, Washington. ...
Fokker 100 of British Midland Airways Fokker was a Dutch aircraft manufacturer named after its founder, Anthony Fokker. ...
The Entwicklungsring Nord (Northern development circle) was a 1961 joint venture of Bremen-based Weserflug and Focke-Wulf with Hamburger Flugzeugbau to develop parts for rockets. ...
Bankruptcy is a legally declared inability or impairment of ability of an individual or organization to pay their creditors. ...
Smaller jetliners have been a part of the market since the early days of jet airliners. The Sud Caravelle would today be placed in the "small" category due to size alone. Other examples include the 40-seat YAK 40 and mid-sized BAe 146 and Fokker 100. The key difference between these designs and current regional jets is operational costs, the new designs cost significantly less to operate, making them suitable for many different roles, as opposed to simply being "short-mid range airliners". Sud Aviation Caravelle The SE 210 Caravelle was the first short/medium-range jet airliner, produced by the French Sud Aviation firm starting in 1955 (when it was still known as SNCASE). ...
The BAe 146 (also known as the Avro RJ) is a medium-sized commercial aircraft manufactured by BAE SYSTEMS. It carries its four jet engines on a high wing above the fuselage; not below, or at mid-fuselage, as on most conventional civilian aircraft. ...
Fokker F100 of British Midland The Fokker F100 is a small twin-engine regional jet airliner and feederliner from the Fokker company. ...
As the popularity of regional jets continues to grow with airlines, larger variants of these aircraft can be expected. These larger variants will blur the line between RJ's and traditional "full-size" jet aircraft. As an example, the original DC-9 jet aircraft were designed to seat approximately 75 passengers. RJ's have a ready market with airlines who appreciate their lower acquisition and operating costs. The Douglas DC-9 is a twin-engined jet airliner, first manufactured in 1965 and, in much modified form and under a succession of different names, still in production today as the Boeing 717. ...
Features Regional jet aircraft are typically flown by the regional airline partners of the larger international airlines. An aircraft's lifetime cost is a combination of three factors, the purchase price, maintenance costs, and operational costs such as fuel use.
Seating on RJ's tends to be narrow and tight, and passengers typically are restricted from bringing on board carry-on items which would fit without difficulty in the overhead bins of larger aircraft. While designed primarily for medium stage lengths, these RJ's may now be found supplementing major trunk routes alongside traditional larger jet aircraft on routings including Dallas/Ft. Worth to Oakland, CA; Atlanta to Houston; and Cleveland to Newark. RJ's allow airlines to open new "long, thin" routings with jet equipment which heretofore did not exist, such as Atlanta to Monterrey, Mexico. RJ's have also meant a return to jet service to cities where full-size jet service had departed over a decade ago, such as Macon, Georgia.
The fact that regional jet aircraft are less expensive (per seat mile) than traditional jets is a common misconception. On a per mile basis the rj's cost can in fact be higher. The reason that regional jet operators provide an economic benefit to traditional airlines comes from the fee-per-departure payment structure under which these aircraft are operated. In this payment structure, a traditional airline contracts with a regional airline company on a per departure or per flight basis regardless of the number of passengers or the length of the flight. The traditional airline gets to keep all the revenue from the ticket sale and only pays the regional partner the agreed to amount. These contracts tend to be long term agreements, typically 10 year terms. The regional airline partner can then be relatively sure of the revenue side and only has to control cost in order to earn a modest return.
The idea that regional jets would provide point-to-point service and bypass the hub-and-spoke system may not be materializing as it was expected. As of January 2003 90% of all regional jet flights in the United States had a hub or major airport at one end of that flight, and this number has been gradually increasing since 1995.
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