The market for regional jets, like for mainline jets, is taking time to return to pre-Covid levels. To some extent, the regional jet market is suffering to an even greater extent from the lack of pilots. With so many flight crew vacancies, pilots can pick and choose which airlines to fly with and some have sought to move on to larger aircraft which offer the opportunity to fly more modern aircraft with higher salaries. A number of regional operators in the U.S. have needed to offer considerable salary increases as a means of stopping pilots from leaving. Increasing salaries results in higher costs for regional operators at a time when other costs are increasing. The difference between profit and loss for the regional operators is that much finer and while there is substantive demand, passengers may not always be willing to absorb significant increases in ticket prices. There is therefore perhaps lesser ability to return regional jets to the skies.
You must be logged in as a subscriber to Aircraft Value News to view this page. Please log in below.
