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TurboProps Are Making a Come Back Amid High Fuel Prices
Record-high fuel prices have hammered airlines, forcing executives to eliminate flights, cut back on unprofitable routes and make passengers pay for many perks that used to be free. Now the airlines are looking at other ways to save money. That means a new opportunity for a plane from the past. (www.npr.org) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
EMB-120 V2.0!
Haha! Brasilia 2.0!
They need to put the Saab 2000 back into production!
We've been wondering what ever happened to Mesaba's Saab 340s, well there is one of them right in the picture. They even kept the old XJ tail number. They were still good birds, it was sad to see them go.
Flew on them as a pax between KFSM and KMEM when Mesaba had them as NWA. Definitely not my favorite over a CRJ. It will be interesting to see what new technolgy does for noise and vibration. AA for awhile was running an ATR of some type on one of their daily flights between KDFW and KFSM. Flight time was about 1/2 hr longer each way than an RJ. Don't know if the trade off in flying time compensated for less fuel or not, but me, like a lot of other folks just got accustomed to the RJ's. Again, no doubt they are cheaper by the hour to operate and they may mean the difference in a city having service or not but the extra time has to be looked at rather than just straight fuel saving.
Preacher, those AA ATRs you used to fly are now being flown by my company for Fedex as "feeder" aircraft on the shorter runs. After a few teething problems, mostly having to do with the conversion to cargo, and issues with being parked for a long time, they've done well. They're reliable and relatively economical to operate, and, considering they are, for the most part, about 25 years old, they are surprisingly modern. The new ATRs use the latest in technology to make them even more so, and the Q400s have already developed and enviable reputation for their performance. I think we'll be seeing a lot more props in the future, and fewer and fewr RJs.
10-4, yeah I am tpyed in them as well but there is a lot of room for improvment, particularly for the pax. As I said earlier, the business end of anything don't make much difference as you are occupied but the back end leaves a lot to be desired