As the new year begins, U.S. regional carriers will be flying more than 100,000 new routes with regional jets (RJs).

According to an analysis of airline schedules performed by BACK Aviation Solutions for Regional Aviation News, six network carriers account for the bulk of the 107,321 new routes in the first quarter of 2005. The seventh carrier included in the analysis was Independence Air [FLYI], which flies the bulk of its routes with Bombardier [BBD] CRJ 200s. Based on an analysis of the Official Airline Guide, BACK's tally includes those routes that had not been flown by an RJ in the third quarter of this year. The carriers may be instituting new service with an RJ, substituting an RJ for a mainline flight or upgrading a turboprop route to RJ service.

A review of the schedules finds no one common theme. The winter was selected to contrast with the fall travel period to see if an increase in RJ traffic could be attributed to seasonal flying. Only one carrier, Continental Airlines [CAL], fits into that mode. Continental is adding the fewest new RJ flights - 2,049 - in the quarter. All of these new routes will be flown by ExpressJet [XJT], its primary code-share partner. Continental has scheduled 950 new first quarter flights to Mexican destinations, or 46 percent of its additions. Another 326 flights are to snow country, the bulk of which are from either Los Angeles or Houston to Gunnison and Montrose, Colo. Another 179 are to Florida "Snowbird" communities.

Delta Air Lines [DAL] is adding the most new RJ flights - 45,218. After examining the flight schedules, BACK analyst Fred Roe said it is clear that Delta is re-positioning its RJ fleet away from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport as it announced early in the fall (CRAN, Sept. 13). While Delta is spreading the new flying assignment among four regional carriers, it is giving 58.4 percent of the new flights to Atlantic Southeast Airlines (ASA), one of its subsidiaries. While SkyWest [SKYW] will get only 3.4 percent of the new flights, Roe noted that it will get the near distance cities from Salt Lake City. ASA, using the 70- seat CRJ 700, will fly some long flights from Salt Lake, to such cities as San Francisco.

While SkyWest does not fly the 70-seat plane for Delta, it does for United Airlines [UALAQ]. United is adding more than 14,800 flights in the first quarter - the bulk of them from its existing hubs. United has assigned more than half of the new flights to its two 70-seat partners, SkyWest and Chautauqua Airlines. Each code-share partner will get more than 4,000 new flights in the first quarter. In keeping with the seasonal nature of some flights, United is flying 920 flights from two hubs, San Francisco and Denver, to five snow resort communities: Vail, Steamboat Springs and Colorado Springs, Colo., Boise, Idaho, and Salt Lake City.

Late last summer, United and American Airlines [AMR] agreed to reduce the number of flights each flies through congested Chicago O'Hare International Airport (CRAN, Aug. 30). Much of the congestion has been blamed on the ever-growing number of RJs servicing Chicago routes formerly handled by mainline aircraft. In the next quarter, United will fly 7,826 new RJ flights through O'Hare. American, on the other hand, will fly only 898 new RJ flights. As part of its new business plan, United said that its winter schedule would boost its United Express flying by 23 percent while cutting domestic mainline flights by 12 percent (CRAN, Oct. 18).

As Delta abandons the Dallas airport, American will be adding 3,127 new RJ flights in the next quarter through the airport - that's 36 percent all of its 8,576 new first quarter RJ flights. Outside of Dallas and Chicago, most of the new RJ flights will originate in American focus cities: New York, Boston and Raleigh, N.C.

While United, Delta and Northwest Airlines [NWAC] focus the bulk of their new RJ flights on their hub centers, bankrupt US Airways [UAIRQ] has a new first quarter flight schedule that shows a lot more point-to-point flying by RJ than the carrier did in the third quarter, Weber said. More than 5,380 flights will originate in non-hub cities. A large number of these flights will be non-stop flights from Washington Reagan National Airport and New York LaGuardia International Airport to business destinations in the Northeast, East and Midwest.

>>Contacts: John Weber and Frederick Roe, BACK Aviation Solutions, (203) 752-2000.<<