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.
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.
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.
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.
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