Recently, Andrew Gideon posted:

On Sun, 02 Sep 2007 18:53:42 +0000, Neil Gould wrote:

Even the major airlines are putting more small jets into service.
Most
of the commercial travel that we've done out of CLE in the last few
years have been on Embraers and 737s. For the really remote areas in
Maine, New Hampshire, etc. VLJs may play a larger roll. Expansion of
both of these should eliminate the need of H & S simply to service
these areas.

I share the hope that the "air taxi" concept will help serve these
areas, VLJs or whatever (isn't someone running a taxi service with
Cirri?). Perhaps that will kill the need for H&S.

Can the airlines do this? Or do they view air taxi operations as
competition?

I wouldn't be surprised if the airlines saw anything in the sky as
competition. ;-)

I wonder what impact the shrinking of airline aircraft has on their
costs. I mean: is there some fixed per-flight cost which would define
the smallest aircraft they could "schedule"?

The Embraers that we've been on are 60 seaters (or so), and that isn't
just for short hops. I prefer them to the larger planes because they have
more comfortable seating.

I cannot help notice that this push on the part of the airlines for
control over ATC and our airspace comes as a potential competitor is
possibly arriving. Coincidence? I wonder.

I think you're on to something, there. Probably not a coincidence.

But does this mean that H&S was always flawed? Or did it make sense
in one environment, but not in the environment we hope is coming?

I think it was a bad idea that cost so much that it would be difficult to
change. As a country, we seem to find ourselves in that position all to
often for my liking.

Neil