Title says it all. I'm an FA for MQ and our investment for 40x E175s (+90x options) is a real success thus far.

Besides the 35 CRJ-700s we have, which are supposedly going to PSA next year, we have over 100 EMBs, the majority are 145s.

The rest are E140s, pulled from storage earlier this year to assist with the high demand this summer, further underlined by the Republic debacle. The E140s are expected to be retired yet again at some point this year.

These planes are old. Very old. And 50 seat jets are going out of style quick. In a letter to MQ pilots earlier this year, the fleet plan shows the retirement of the E140s and a reduction of E145s, but does anyone know when the type will be retired or phased out?

Does it also make sense for MQ to be an all E175 regional airline?

Boeing778X wrote:

These planes are old. Very old.

While I won't dispute these planes are getting up in age, in airline terms they are not "very old" The oldest planes are right about 18 years old and the youngest are 11 years old. Most the the MD-80's, 767, and 757's of the parent company is flying are much older, and the oldest of the 737-800's and 777-200's are about the same age.

Being based at a smaller airport (see my username), I will be sad to see them go. The bought the jet age to small airports, and the single side "A" seating really isn't that bad for a flight under 2 1/2 hours or so.

Boeing778X wrote:

Does it also make sense for MQ to be an all E175 regional airline?

Makes lots of sense. New fleet with great fuel efficiency, range, passenger comfort, 2 classes, maximum scope clause capacity, etc. Only have to train crews on 1 aircraft type and store parts for 1 type of fleet.

kbmiflyer wrote:

Boeing778X wrote:

These planes are old. Very old.

While I won't dispute these planes are getting up in age, in airline terms they are not "very old" The oldest planes are right about 18 years old and the youngest are 11 years old. Most the the MD-80's, 767, and 757's of the parent company is flying are much older, and the oldest of the 737-800's and 777-200's are about the same age.

Being based at a smaller airport (see my username), I will be sad to see them go. The bought the jet age to small airports, and the single side "A" seating really isn't that bad for a flight under 2 1/2 hours or so.

You gotta compare apples to apples. 145s fly a lot more cycles than the aircraft that you compared them to. 18 year old 145 is a flying beer can, compared to a 18 year old 767.

Boeing778X wrote:

Does it also make sense for MQ to be an all E175 regional airline?

I expect AA will keep MQ on a pretty short leash and encourage competition from other RJ operators. Yes, they want to improve pilot productivity - bigger planes = more ASMs per hour - in order to pay the higher wages needed to attract and keep pilots. But I don't think they'll want to give too much leverage to MQ. Delta's history with Comair turned ugly.

Envoy needs to do something about their operations. Today, FlightAware has 57 cancellations (5%) and 25 delays (2%). It's been going on for awhile.

My understanding is that Envoy is eventually going to be all E175, PSA will fly the CRJs and Piedmont will continue to limp along with the 145s replacing their Dash 8's. At some point Piedmont will need to get newer airplanes, but each carrier flying a specific type will save money across the organization.

Piedmont Airlines announced an expansion of their E-145 fleet and will be retiring their entire Dash-8 fleet so it is reasonable to assume that many of the E-145s will be coming from Envoy.

http://aviationtribune.com/airlines/nor ... jet-fleet/

http://salisburyindependent.net/wicomic ... jet-fleet/

"Piedmont Airlines is further expanding its fleet of Embraer 145 regional jets with accelerated deliveries of aircraft from American Airlines starting in early 2017.

American had previously committed 20 jets to Piedmont and we are pleased that our parent company will now continue to increase that number. The expanding fleet of jets puts Piedmont on an exciting path to the future, and that will lead to even more opportunities.”

Piedmont began operating the E145 regional jet in February, and has taken delivery of seven jets so far. All Piedmont jets will operate out of the American Airlines Philadelphia hub.

As a result of the accelerated jet expansion, Piedmont will begin to transition away from its traditional aircraft, the de Havilland DHC-8 turboprop. Piedmont expects to start retiring turboprop aircraft at a rate of about one aircraft per month.

“The Dash has served us well for years,” said Hogg, “but we know that passengers prefer the regional jets and we want to provide the best service we can for American and for our customers.”

GoHokies wrote:

Piedmont Airlines announced an expansion of their E-145 fleet and will be retiring their entire Dash-8 fleet so it is reasonable to assume that many of the E-145s will be coming from Envoy.

http://aviationtribune.com/airlines/nor ... jet-fleet/

http://salisburyindependent.net/wicomic ... jet-fleet/

"Piedmont Airlines is further expanding its fleet of Embraer 145 regional jets with accelerated deliveries of aircraft from American Airlines starting in early 2017.

American had previously committed 20 jets to Piedmont and we are pleased that our parent company will now continue to increase that number. The expanding fleet of jets puts Piedmont on an exciting path to the future, and that will lead to even more opportunities.”

Piedmont began operating the E145 regional jet in February, and has taken delivery of seven jets so far. All Piedmont jets will operate out of the American Airlines Philadelphia hub.

As a result of the accelerated jet expansion, Piedmont will begin to transition away from its traditional aircraft, the de Havilland DHC-8 turboprop. Piedmont expects to start retiring turboprop aircraft at a rate of about one aircraft per month.

“The Dash has served us well for years,” said Hogg, “but we know that passengers prefer the regional jets and we want to provide the best service we can for American and for our customers.”

Piedmont currently has 36 Dash 8s in the fleet, as well as the eventual batch of 20 E145s. My guess is that the Dash 8s will be replaced 1:1 by 36 additional E145s from MQ. Based on what's said in the articles above, Piedmont wishes to expand greatly. 36 Dash 8s to 56+ E145s might be the way to do it.

bahadir wrote:

You gotta compare apples to apples. 145s fly a lot more cycles than the aircraft that you compared them to. 18 year old 145 is a flying beer can, compared to a 18 year old 767.

Are new 145s still available? I've been looking at Embraer's website, and I haven't been able to find out specifically.. It appears that the basic airframe is still produced, just as a military or private jet.

If so, I wonder if we'll see new examples rolling off the line to replace the lower end flying.

Don't forget the ones Envoy transferred to ExpressJet and Trans States. We have two now and eventually a third one coming back from ExpressJet soon. AAG won't hold Envoy on a short leash for a while until the 90 EMB-175 aircraft order is offered to them. These EMB-145's will still fly in the future until their lifespan is up, but that is up to Embraer to say. Piedmont will get the older 145's and probably the other ones will have to come from Trans States unless they are coming from Envoy directly. I've heard Trans States has had some issues with them as well. As for the 145, only the Legacy is offered by Embraer, no more commercial variants of the aircraft in the future.

USAirKid wrote:

bahadir wrote:

You gotta compare apples to apples. 145s fly a lot more cycles than the aircraft that you compared them to. 18 year old 145 is a flying beer can, compared to a 18 year old 767.

Are new 145s still available? I've been looking at Embraer's website, and I haven't been able to find out specifically.. It appears that the basic airframe is still produced, just as a military or private jet.

If so, I wonder if we'll see new examples rolling off the line to replace the lower end flying.

Last i heard the line was capable still of both the erj 135 140 145 and even the emb120 on one off basis but I'm guessing the one off nature makes the cost prohibitive. With as many used erjs laying around don't think anyone will be running out anytime soon

CcrlR wrote:

Don't forget the ones Envoy transferred to ExpressJet and Trans States. We have two now and eventually a third one coming back from ExpressJet soon. AAG won't hold Envoy on a short leash for a while until the 90 EMB-175 aircraft order is offered to them. These EMB-145's will still fly in the future until their lifespan is up, but that is up to Embraer to say. Piedmont will get the older 145's and probably the other ones will have to come from Trans States unless they are coming from Envoy directly. I've heard Trans States has had some issues with them as well. As for the 145, only the Legacy is offered by Embraer, no more commercial variants of the aircraft in the future.

Expressjet has a contract that's about to expire. They have 10-12 E145s that are going to be returned to Envoy. Trans States has 14 of our E145s.

I'm going to guess that all these units could be given to Piedmont. The Envoy E145s that are being operated by other airlines are the older N6xxAE units.

Envoy has two options when it comes to the future, IMHO. In addition to sending E145s to Piedmont and CRJ-700s to PSA, they can:

1. Become an all E175 airlines as they apparently want to be, and then outsource the small town markets to another regional airline (Air Wisconsin, Skywest, etc.)
-OR-
2. Retain and refurbish the youngest 20-30 E145s for service to the smallest towns, as well as continue to build the E175 fleet, which will probably go beyond the 40 being acquired anyways, as said above, providing that MQ's performance continues to improve.

11725Flyer wrote:

Envoy needs to do something about their operations. Today, FlightAware has 57 cancellations (5%) and 25 delays (2%). It's been going on for awhile.

If you think that's bad, check out Endeavor Air. From Thursday 8//11 to Wed 8/17 they cancelled 370 flights and had another 665 delays.

IPFreely wrote:

11725Flyer wrote:

Envoy needs to do something about their operations. Today, FlightAware has 57 cancellations (5%) and 25 delays (2%). It's been going on for awhile.

If you think that's bad, check out Endeavor Air. From Thursday 8//11 to Wed 8/17 they cancelled 370 flights and had another 665 delays.

Out of how many flights scheduled?

USAirKid wrote:

Out of how many flights scheduled?

Endeavor has 750 departures/day and a typical week has 7% of scheduled flights cancelled.

I still keep smelling mergers in the regional industry...way too many around.

I'm curious as to the retirement rate of the E145 family of regional jets. I personally really like to be a passenger on the type, but only when someone else is paying.

Long term, the larger RJs will take over. For the small towns, something with better economics is required (turboprop?).

Lightsaber

In a recent conference, AAG stated that they continue to expect the Eagle fleet to grow, and that it's now possible that at least some E175 options will be exercised. Assuming all 90 options were indeed converted to orders, and would all most likely go to Envoy, what would the fleet plan be at that point?

Boeing778X wrote:

In a recent conference, AAG stated that they continue to expect the Eagle fleet to grow, and that it's now possible that at least some E175 options will be exercised. Assuming all 90 options were indeed converted to orders, and would all most likely go to Envoy, what would the fleet plan be at that point?

Converting the 90 options to orders would put AAG over on their limit of large RJs by about 30 so it would have to be announced with a Mainline order of additional aircraft (which isn't looking good given the 321 NEOs were pushed back to 2019) or a change in how the scope clause is calculated. (Allowed at end of 2016 is 361.6 and AA has committed to 304 currently)

I'm showing 64 ER4s in the MQ fleet after the 20 have been transferred to Piedmont (which is extrapolated from the original 2016 AA fleet plan which has changed even since announced). Who knows what will happen to the 29 ERDs. They aren't nearly as profitable but they are the only option for some cities and I can't see AA wanting to drop some of these cities.