Comments on: Tell Me About This Photo

By: Jeff Coons

Jeff Coons — Sat, 07 May 2022 16:07:23 +0000

I’d adjust your date estimate of this picture given a few clues particularly around Terminal A. There are multiple CO airplanes hard standed along the “hockey stick” which was implemented in very late 86 by Massport (versus three straight lines) along which PT, RP and QO operated. You also can see a CO branded but PE origin 727 tucked along the back of Terminal A which is at a then new gate added to A to accommodate consolidating CO and EA post the 2/1/87 big bang merger. So this is probably very late spring or early summer 87 given that combined with the Command ATR still in Command livery and not yet in AA Eagle paint. Fun stuff!

By: Carlos Si

Carlos Si — Sat, 12 Feb 2022 05:37:04 +0000

Oddly enough they are sort of disappearing now, or rather, getting bigger.

Gone are the EMB120s, and CR2s are much fewer nowadays with Delta (IIRC) doing away with all 50-seaters in the near-future (not sure how that’s possible with scope clauses. Maybe it was just one particular regional airline working for them).

While the days of multiple wide-body options on a common citypair are gone, there’s plenty of comfortable rides to be had on an E75 (with wide seating and spacious legroom, though I imagine that is also because of scope limiting them to 76 seats).

By: Lee Taplinger

Lee Taplinger — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 22:36:17 +0000

You may have missed some of the discussion about the MAX while it was grounded, the airlines were concerned that passengers who had never looked at what equipment was printed on their ticket were going to specify that they would not fly on a MAX. I have no idea if that ever happened once the planes were recertified.

Those people who said they would be afraid to be in the air on a MAX don’t realize that the safest model is the most scrutinized model. What passengers should have been demanding was a pilot bonus for flying the MAX because Patrick Smith said the cockpit is cramped and noisy.

By: D R Lunsford

D R Lunsford — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 09:07:08 +0000

I got it almost immediately 🙂 I do remember the first widely used commuter, the ATR-72, flown by ASA (Atlantic Southeast) at Atlanta. You could do the same game from 1970 and you’d still see Lockheed Electras and Convair 440s. And once in a while, a Delta 747-100 with the classic livery, which was the most awesome sight of my spotting life!

-drl

By: 757MAX

757MAX — Sun, 06 Feb 2022 07:23:16 +0000

Regarding what Alan said, I think that passengers would still fly on regionals if they (the regionals) were more independent. It would be just like code-sharing. You book a flight an airline’s website (I assume they would still partner with the majors) and get a flight on another airline.
There’s actually some RJ’s that have the regional’s livery, but they’re rare. If they all wore the regional’s livery, it would be much more interesting!

By: Rafael

Rafael — Fri, 04 Feb 2022 01:28:17 +0000

Wonderful Post! Indeed, IMHO it’s very related to your other post: https://askthepilot.com/20-years-and-counting/ – most traffic has migrated to RJ instead of mainline – and somehow must have influenced in the 20 years statistic. Sad but true…

By: Don Beyer

Don Beyer — Fri, 04 Feb 2022 00:20:20 +0000

Before deregulation, airlines like Allegheny, Mohawk, Piedmont, Southern, North Central, Frontier, Ozark, Texas International and Air West were known as local service airlines. They fed passengers from smaller cities to ALL of the major trunk carriers at any big city airport.

The system today is a massive fraud. Both Republic and Skywest fly for the big three. Sometimes on the same route. American and Delta have flights from Kansas City to La Guardia at 6:01am and 6:06am. Both are operated by Republic. United has four flights from KC to Chicago. One on Skywest, one on Mesa and two on Republic.

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 15:06:49 +0000

I remember people pushing for a third airport in the Chicago area to serve the growing market in regional service with more scheduled flights to cities near Chicago. Never mind that most of this traffic would have been much better served environmentally and often time wise (factoring in time to airport, etc.) with modern train service.

Is society really owed eight flights a day from Des Moines to Chicago?

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 22:07:24 +0000

Regional jets are what’s missing. Everything was mainline back then.

I answered immediately on the FB thread but will post here as well.

By: Alan

Alan — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 21:57:47 +0000

I wonder sometimes how it would change aviation if the regionals were required to fly under their own names. Are there people who wouldn’t fly on a regional if the ticket, jet and cabin crew were required to carry the regionals name and logo? I don’t know the answer to this but I suspect that there would be fewer regional passengers.