Summary

  • Moscow Sheremetyevo to St Petersburg is the world’s most-served regional jet route this week, with 112 departing flights.
  • Rossiya’s SSJ100s provide 61%+ of the airport pair’s services, up from just 6% pre-war, perhaps due to a lack of spare parts for Aeroflot’s Airbus equipment.
  • Four of the top five markets globally are in North America.


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Love or loathe them or somewhere in-between, regional jets play an important role in aviation. This is especially true in the US, where one in four scheduled passenger flights is by them, mainly using the Embraer E175 or CRJ900. These are the world’s five most-served regional jet routes anywhere in the week starting October 7th.


The world’s most-served RJ routes

Analysis of schedules for the examined week shows that more than 2,500 routes globally will be served by RJs, whether just once or very frequently, with the top five shown in the table below. The extent and widespread nature of RJ use means they account for just one in 59 services by the equipment group worldwide.

Rossiya SSJ100 landing

Photo: Rossiya

The 373 miles (601 km) between Moscow Sheremetyevo and St Petersburg is in first place. Pre-war, RJs had only a tiny role, as it was mainly about Aeroflot’s A320s and A321s: Rossiya’s 87-to-100-seat SSJ100s provided just 6% of flights. They now account for more than 61%, perhaps influenced by a lack of spare parts for Aeroflot’s Western fleet.

Weekly RJ flights*

Max daily**

Routing

Airlines***

RJ types^

112

16

Moscow Sheremetyevo to St Petersburg

Rossiya

Sukhoi SSJ100

109

16

Newark to Toronto Pearson

United Express, Air Canada Express

E175, E170 (United)

107

17

Seattle to Portland

Alaska Airlines, Delta Connection

E175

105

16

Seattle to Spokane

Delta Connection, Alaska Airlines

E175

97

15

New York LaGuardia to Toronto Pearson

Delta Connection, American Eagle, Air Canada Express

E175 (American), CRJ900 (the other two)

* Each way; Oct 7th-13th

** Each way

*** Ordered by flights

^ Ordered by flights. Note: Air Canada’s A220s are mainline equipment, so I have excluded them

The world’s top international RJ market

As the table shows, Newark to Toronto is the world’s leading international RJ airport pair. Entirely by RJs, 103 of the 109 departures are scheduled by the E175, the rest by the E170, with the 348-mile (560 km) airport pair being very much a Star Alliance connector.

Air Canada Embraer E175 landing

Photo: Sockagphoto / Shutterstock

United Express has 60 weekly departures operated by Republic, while Air Canada Express has 49 flights by Jazz. They do, of course, codeshare. If all equipment is considered, it is United’s top international route by flights and Air Canada’s second most-served. I previously showed that Air Canada will serve 52 US destinations this winter.

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Typically, 16 daily flights

United and Air Canada collectively have 16 daily flights (each way) between Newark and Toronto, reducing to 13 daily on Saturdays from lower business travel.

United Express Embraer E175

Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying

As a snapshot of activity, consider Monday, October 9th, with all of these due to leave from Newark that day. All are operated by the E175 unless stated. As you can see, they work together to coordinate schedules for a more or less hourly service:

  • 06:00: AC8873
  • 06:59: UA3533
  • 08:06: UA3702 (E170)
  • 09:00: AC8875
  • 10:00: UA3555
  • 11:00: AC8877
  • 12:02: UA3400
  • 13:01: UA3704
  • 14:00: AC8879
  • 15:13: UA3622
  • 16:13: UA3706
  • 16:30: AC8881
  • 18:03: UA3504
  • 19:00: AC8883
  • 20:07: UA3434
  • 21:00: AC8885

Will you be flying any of the five most-served routes soon? If so, let us know in the comments.

Sources of information: Cirium, OAG, ch-aviation.com, Flightradar24.com, Google Flights

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