Commuter Airlines Breed Concerns

The last three fatal commercial plane accidents in the United States have been on commuter planes, with the last one being the crash of a Continental Connection flight near Buffalo Niagara International Airport on February 12.

Image: David Duprey-Pool/Getty Images

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Within minutes of Continental Connection Flight 3407's fatal crash on the night of February 12, frequent fliers were emailing each other, cursing commuter airlines, and vowing never to board smaller commercial aircraft again.

"I HATE THOSE TINY OLD RJS," one otherwise rational business traveler I know shouted in his email. "NOBODY SHOULD FLY THEM. THEY'RE NOT SAFE."

No matter that the aircraft involved in Flight 3407's fiery end six miles from Buffalo Niagara International Airport was not an "RJ," industry shorthand for regional jet. (It was a Q400, a twin-engine turboprop plane manufactured by Bombardier of Canada.) No matter that the 74-seat Q400 isn't particularly tiny. (At 107 feet long with a 93-foot wingspan, it is about the size of several early versions of Boeing's workhorse B737 jet and 20 feet longer than Bombardier's 50-seat regional jet.) And no matter that the Q400 isn't old. (The Q400 series didn't enter service until 2000 and the plane that crashed in Buffalo was less than a year old.)

Safe? That is most definitely in the eye of the beholder—and most business travelers eye commuter airlines with extreme trepidation. They don't like flying them. They don't like that the commuter lines wrap themselves in the colors and livery of the major airlines. And they are convinced, rightly or wrongly, that commuter carriers simply aren't as safe as the major airlines they mimic.

From a statistical point of view, flying in the United States is astonishingly safe. Between 2002 and November, 2008, the last month for which government numbers are available, about 4.4 billion people have flown 50 billion domestic miles. In that time, there have been just three fatal crashes. Unfortunately, all three involved commuter airliners: 19 died in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2003; 49 passengers died in Lexington, Kentucky, in 2006; and 50 people (including one on the ground) perished in Buffalo early this month. The circumstances and the aircraft were different in each case, but the fact that all three involved commuter airlines has spooked business travelers and even pilots.

Smaller Isn't Better
In fact, it is the aircraft that are at the heart of most travelers' antipathy toward commuter airlines. Many commuter lines still fly what frequent travelers despise the most—small prop planes like the 19-seat Beechcraft 1900 that crashed in Charlotte. They are cramped and noisy, more susceptible to turbulence and fly at lower altitudes than jets, which means they are more often buffeted by inclement weather. Even the Q400, one of the most sophisticated aircraft in the skies, cruises at 25,000 feet, far below the 35,000- to 40,000-foot range used by traditional jets.

The workhorse of the commuter airlines—37- and 50-seat regional jets manufactured by Bombardier and Embraer of Brazil—are no match for Boeing and Airbus planes, either. Their smaller fuselages—the maximum cabin height of a 50-seat Bombardier CRJ is just 73 inches—make travelers feel crowded and uncomfortable. Because they are smaller, regional jets have some of the same "weight and balance" issues as earlier generations of commuter aircraft. And nothing makes a business traveler queasier—and feel less than "safe"—than being asked to change seats to help the pilot balance the aircraft.

Familiarity Breeds Contempt
All these essentially minor issues wouldn't bother business travelers as much if they weren't forced to fly commuter aircraft so frequently. Planes like the Q400 and the regional jets have a 1,300-mile range, so they pop up on many medium- and longer-haul routes that were once served by mainline carriers flying Boeing and Airbus jets. Although the numbers are in flux since the massive industry cutbacks after last Labor Day, about half of the flights operating from Chicago O'Hare and Washington/Dulles Airport lately have been regional jets or turboprops. More than a third of the flights at Atlanta Hartsfield are operated by commuter lines. And an astonishing 80 percent of the service in Cincinnati, a hub for Delta Air Lines, is flown by its commuter partners.

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