Regional jets continue to make in-roads in the Canadian market, but propeller-driven aircraft are still the industry's workhorse beyond the population-rich band just north of the U.S. border.

Although 40 carriers offer scheduled service on regional aircraft in Canada, only two carriers fly regional jets: Air Canada and Air Canada Jazz.

In the last year, the number of RJ departures has nearly doubled. According to data analyzed by BACK Aviation Solutions for Regional Aviation News, there were 26,322 scheduled RJ departures in 2004 while 52,052 have been scheduled for this year. A year ago, there were 26 routes served by a regional jets. In the current quarter, there are now 34 routes with RJ service.

While Jazz is the designated regional unit of Air Canada ferrying traffic from a number of Canadian communities to eight gateway airports, Air Canada continues to fly regional jets. Beginning in July, Air Canada will be flying Brazilian-built Embraer [ERJ] 175s, and later Embraer 190s. As the new Embraer 175s arrive, Air Canada will be shifting its fleet of Bombardier [BBD] CRJ 200s as well as its routes to Jazz (RAN, March 7). The Canadian-built CRJs 200s will only be flown by Jazz, which will also soon be flying the CRJ 705, configured to seat 75 in two cabins.

Jazz has eight British-built BAe 146s in storage.

In the last five years, Air Canada has gone from flying RJs in clusters - one cluster being eastern Canadian business and government centers, and the other being western Canadian business centers - to flights which link the eastern and western business centers at Winnipeg, Manitoba. A number of routes served by prop-powered aircraft, including one that reaches Grise Fiord on Ellesmere Island, far north of the Arctic Circle, also feed into Winnipeg. RJ service now extends as far east as a route between Halifax, Nova Scotia, and St. John's, New Foundland. The northern-most RJ route extends from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory.

Compared to 2004, the RJs this year are being flown longer distances, said John Weber, a BACK vice president and analyst. "In 2005 the average trip distance is 580 miles, or 12 percent longer than the distance flown in 2004." Flying times have increased proportionally. The average trip is now five minutes longer - one-hour-and-forty-five minutes.

Next year, those stats are bound to change. When Jazz begins flying the CRJ 705s, the typical route will be similar to the 1,379-mile trip between Toronto and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (RAN, March 7). That trip is estimated to take 3.5 hours. The carrier is describing these new routes as "medium haul."

Flying the RJ on longer routes would put the carriers' RJs in direct competition with Air Canada's mainline aircraft flying those routes. Air Canada's mainline service competes on all these routes with WestJet [WJA], Canada's low-fare carrier that is borrowing the best from the Southwest [LUV] and JetBlue [JBLU] playbooks.

Overall, all regional operations are expected to increase slightly in 2005 over 2004. The recent peak was in 2000, when there were 581,477 regional departures.Ever since, scheduled departures have been declining, hitting a low-point of 467,377 departures in 2004. The 2004 low-point coincides with Air Canada's bankruptcy, which included reshuffling its regional flying. Traffic is expected to be up by about 3 percent this year. The increase, Weber pointed out, is due to the growth of RJ traffic. The number of prop-powered departures is expected to dip by 6 percent based on the current schedules posted for the year, he said.

While the number of regional departures is expected to increase, the number of routes will decrease by nearly 100 routes to 378 routes with scheduled service. The number of prop-powered routes is dropping from 448 at this time last year to 344 scheduled for the current quarter.

On the prop side, the biggest difference between 2005 and 2004 is the 5 percent decrease in average trip distance for piston aircraft, Weber said. The average trip is now 95 miles. However, piston operations account for only 4 percent of total prop operations.

The Canadian prop-powered airlines serve a number of thinly populated communities with critical scheduled service. Nineteen communities above the Arctic Circle have regular service. Because air service is the only way to reach these ice-bound communities, the number of flights remains constant year-round, said Frederick Roe, a BACK analyst. For example, there were slightly more than 100 flights a quarter last year from Iqaluit on Baffin Island to Igloolik on the Melville Peninsula with the service provided by First Air. Each weekday year-round, First Air flies between Iqaluit to Cape Dorset, also on Baffin Island. Without a highway system on Baffin Island, First Air flies to seven other communities on the island with all the traffic funneling through Iqaluit.

There is a similar prop hub at Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories. There are flights to five other communities with links to further remote communities. For example, there are 234 quarterly flights from Yellowknife to Lutsel K'e, also in the Northwest Territories, on Air Tindi.

At least two of the carriers that serve remote areas, Air Inuit and Air Creebec, are owned by the communities they serve. The Inuit and Cree native peoples have tribal corporations that operate the airlines.

With a network of nearly 40 small carriers operating across the northern tier of Canada, many do have routes to the major cities. However, very few of these carriers have formal relationships with Air Canada or Jazz. Only four carriers - Air Creebec, Calm Air, Canadian North and First Air - provide their passengers with Air Canada's frequent flyer miles.

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

Air North Charter, Aviation Starlink, Canadian Western, Innu Mikun Airlines, Keystone Air Service, Norcanair Airlines and Slate Falls Airways each have one plane.