Today we are going to focus on the airline business. We won't get into the nitty gritty details, but I would like to focus on one aspect that many people don't know about or understand in-depth: regional flying.
The airlines
Majors
Delta, United, U.S. Airways, American, Southwest
The United States has (arguably) five, soon to be four, truly cross-country airlines. These airlines operate extensive networks throughout the country, and all but Southwest operate major international networks as well. Together, these five airlines fly every major route throughout the country. In a few months' time, with the Department of Justice's approval, American and U.S. Airways will begin the process of merging, leaving just four major carriers.
Slightly Smallers
JetBlue, Virgin America, Sun Country, Frontier, Allegiant, Hawaiian, etc.
These airlines operate in specific areas of the country, or focus on lesser routes and do not operate full-fledged transcontinental networks like the majors do. For instance, JetBlue flies predominantly on the east coast and west coast and has no base in the middle of the country. Virgin America is similar but much smaller. There are other small airlines you might fly besides the ones I've named here.
Regionals
Atlantic Southeast, Chautauqua, SkyWest, GoJet, Air Wisconsin, ExpressJet, Pinnacle, etc.
You may be thinking to yourself, "why haven't I heard of these," which is ironic because you probably fly on a regional airline more often than not when you travel. But there is a good reason you never see advertisements for or really the names of these regional airlines anywhere: they masquerade as one of the major airlines.
Regional airlines fly regional jets, those little dinky airplanes that make you feel like a sardine when you sit inside them. When you're on one, you may think you're flying on a major airline because the outside of these planes usually has a major airline's paint on them, and your ticket looks like it's for one of the major airlines like Delta or United or U.S. Airways. But what is really happening is that the major airlines are contracting with these regional airlines to fly for them under their own brand name. Look very closely at your ticket next time you fly. Instead of seeing "Delta" or "United," you might see "Delta Connection" or "United Express." If you see one of those names, you are flying on a regional airline.
If you're still not quite understanding what's going on, not to worry. Regional airlines operate in a really confusing way that doesn't make intuitive sense. So let me illustrate with an example:
Chicago to Burlington, Vermont - United Airlines
I'm searching for nonstop flights on Kayak from Chicago to Burlington, Vermont. Here are the results:
From what I can tell, it looks like United flies this route three times tomorrow. 8am is too early for me, even in theory, so I'm going to pick the 2pm flight to purchase. I click through to United's site to make the purchase.
Looks pretty normal. It's a flight I'm buying from United, and it's got a United flight number and everything. Then I look more closely.
What?! What is this I see on the bottom right of that original page? What does it mean "Operated by Mesa Airlines dba United Express"? Well it turns out that this flight isn't flown by United at all. We've been duped! Oh the humanity!
Here's what is really happening. United has a deal with Mesa Airlines that Mesa will fly its regional jets for United. United will sell the tickets, give them gate space at O'Hare and Burlington, and even give them ticketing agents at the airport. In fact we as customers would only interact with United employees, from booking to airport security, until we actually get on the plane. But once we're on the plane we are not with United anymore. We are with Mesa Airlines. Yes, the plane is painted with "United Express" on the side, but the pilots and the flight attendants all receive a paycheck from Mesa. And the plane itself belongs to Mesa.
Why does this happen? Two reasons: demand and cost. United owns big planes. The big planes make sense if you want to fly from Chicago to Houston. There is a ton of demand for such a major city pair. But there aren't as many people that want to fly from Chicago to Burlington, Vermont, so the big planes don't make as much sense. If you fly a smaller plane you can better match supply to demand, and therefore you can charge more per person to fill the seats. By the same token, regional jets are also cheaper to operate than big jets. Mesa can fly this route for less money than United can, partly because Mesa pays its pilots and flight attendants less than United pays its own, and partly because, given low demand, regional jets cost less in fuel per person.
The controversy of regional flying
Since Mesa is a separate airline, it's arguably a bit misleading that we're buying a ticket on United.com for a flight that has a United flight number and flying a plane with United colors. This re-branding is the center of a lot of controversy surrounding regional airlines. Regional airlines are separate entities and therefore have their own safety standards (hopefully subject to the government's watchful eye). The major airlines don't necessarily scrutinize their practices as much as they scrutinize their own. And yet the major airlines hand possibly unknowing customers over to regional airlines for more than 50% of all flights in this country.
In 2009 a flight operated by Colgan Air (a regional airline), doing business as Continental Express, crashed in snowy conditions during approach to Buffalo's airport. All 49 passengers and crew on board died. In the ensuing investigation it was discovered that the captain had failed the flying equivalent of a driver's test...three times. The way the plane was handled in the events leading up to the crash indicated that the crew was not adequately trained to deal with the conditions they were in. It was also found that the pilots also were likely not at full operational capability because of fatigue, a constant problem for regional pilots that have to commute across the country for these flights.
The U.S. government has since introduced legislation in order to improve the safety standards at regional airlines. But the problem still remains that the major airlines aren't necessarily required to supervise the regionals they do business with. Continental's then-CEO Jeff Smisek famously said of the crash, "We were not aware of that training deficiency. That is the responsibility of the FAA. We did not train those pilots... We expect them to be safe. We expect the FAA to do its job." He believes that it's the government's job to supervise regional airlines, which doesn't necessarily make total sense if Continental makes the flight look like one of their own and most consumers have no idea they're flying someone else.
If you're a little concerned about flying a regional airline, hopefully it helps to know that I am not, and I have flown 150,000 miles in the past year and a half. I am comfortable (at least emotionally) flying on a regional airline, and do so very often. Still, however, whenever possible I opt for bigger planes because they tend to have better amenities and are significantly more comfortable to sit in. Plus the regional airlines tend to be much worse at on-time performance. But in terms of safety, I will never refuse to fly a flight operated by a regional airline.
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