Small Communities Getting Air Service Advice For Fleets That Won't Exist.

The Small Community Air Access Conundrum. It’s Not A Pilot Shortage. It’s A Fleet Evaporation

Here’s a hard fact:

Too many small communities are banking on recruiting air service for which there won’t be any airliners.

Check it out. Do a media search for ”small community air service.”

You’ll find lots of stories where small communities are being convinced that as soon as we get more pilots, air service will be flooding back to the local airport. Yessir, the studies all show great traffic:

"There are 22 bazillion passengers generated in our “catchment area” and all they need is an airplane to get on.” And the usual pablum: “Several airlines are interested… it’s just a matter of having the incentives ready!”

Sounds great. Only problem is that a lot of this is based on facts not in evidence. Or more correctly, airliners that won’t be in existence.

Yup, it sounds like bah-humbug, but it still means that the connective airline Santa Claus isn’t going to show up at some of these small underserved and unserved airports. He ain't got a sleigh that will work for the application.

The pilots may be back, but they will be flying much larger airliners. The point that the media misses, and most consultant ASD schemes shamefully ignore, is that the entire category of airliners that once could economically access small community revenues is evaporating.

It’s no secret that 50-seat jets are becoming unable to deliver the financial goods. The average age of the roughly 300 still in USA service is over 20 years. That means maintenance expense heading northward. Pilot pay is now going up. The recent Air Wisconsin ALPA agreement delivers 38% higher compensation over the life of the contract. It won’t be the only one.

Then there’s fuel. When these machines entered service, the cost per gallon of jet-A, adjusted for inflation, was under a buck a gallon. Today it’s three to four times higher. The cost of launching a 50-seater is making the term “ROI” hard to find when the route analysis is done.

Okay, that’s not the end of the world, right? What about larger “small jets?” Be great if they were growing in number, but as for expansion to truly small local airports, the hard fact is that there essentially are none. The CRJ-700s and CRJ-900s are out of production – again, for economic reasons. Those now flying are spoken for. The only jet airliner under 100 seats still in production is the Embraer E-175, which is at 76 seats.

Okay, lets do the fleet math. There are just over 300 50-seat ERJ/CRJ airliners in service. But the next-up in capacity – the E-175 – has only has a trickle of firm orders – firm orders. Like, just about 49 or so airliners on order, spread across American, Delta and United. And this dearth of orders is again due to the march of economics. Even these larger small jets are being affected by the spike in operating costs.

So, there are 300 semi-economic 50-seaters that will be retired over the next 18 - 24 months, and other than these 50 or so E-175s, the next capacity step in roughly 120 seats.

Drop the hype. Chico and Topeka and Youngstown are going to have a hard time convincing a major carrier to apply a $70+ million A319 to a small local airport that is entirely unserved. Time to get real. A ULCC to ‘Vegas, maybe. But that is not air service access. Just impulse leisure service. The rest of the flying public are not going to be in the picture… nor at the local airport.

Conclusion: in the near-term future, the capacity floor for network branded service will be 76 seats. But these are already pretty much spoken for already. The next step up will be 120 or so seats. It is time that this be recognized and put into the planning mix. Again: too many communities are banking on recruiting air service for which there won’t be any airliners.

There are two messages here. The first is that a lot of small community air service at the local airport is simply not going work, regardless of the hype to the contrary. That means economic development is the new future.

The second is that the operators leasing lift to major carriers – the misnamed “regional airlines” – are facing a world where they are no longer viable. They are caged into operating airliners that have declining value to their major partners.

Any air service development plan that doesn’t consider this dynamic is like planning to be on the Titanic’s next Caribbean cruise.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of that going on.

It's time small communities are told the hard truth, instead of being fed what are false hopes and bogus advice.