Xray678

Any RJ company that built a new plane hoping for changes to scope agreements deserves to have their plane fail.

80ktsClamp

This is absolute truthiness!

sailingfun

The good news is you are wrong. If they could get away with that they would not be crying about the limit every chance they get. Sure they could go down to 76 seats but they will have heavier first class seats and the aircraft will require additional galley space. The other issue is they then could not sell it with 88 seats and have any range. Again read the CEO's comments.

Most U.S. airlines’ pilot contracts have scope clauses that limit outsourcing of flying on aircraft exceeding 76 seats and a maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) of more than 86,000 lb. The MRJ can be configured with up to 90 seats, and its MTOW exceeds the cutoff. Yamagami said the seat-count restriction can be met by configuring the MRJ90 with two classes of service, but the MTOW restriction is a more difficult nut to crack.

“If the current 86,000-lb. MTOW restriction remains, our aircraft does not have enough range,” he said. “If we fill the aircraft with passengers, we cannot fill enough fuel for maximum range.” In its longest-range derivative, the MRJ has a 2,000 nm range and an MTOW just north of 90,000 lb.

80ktsClamp

"fill the aircraft" with 76 or 90 passengers?

msprj2

It's a regional jet, doesn't have to go more than 1500 miles.
Most rj legs I think are under 500 miles

sailingfun

76 seats. They have gone to enormous effort to get the weight down and still have enough range to sell the aircraft worldwide. The 90 seat version was already range deficient so they reduced the max seating to 88 to meet the spec. Geared engines are heavy. Their South American counterparts can't crack that nut either and have basically put the E2 on hold. Both manufacturers say they are certain scope rules will be lifted in the next round of talks coming up. They said the exact same thing about the last round when they planned in service dates in 2017. Now they plan 2020 when the next round should be over.
UAL and AMR managements seem to believe that scope relief is coming based on their fleet plans. Let's hope it does not happen.
One last thing to keep in mind, when they roll the first actual production aircraft on to the scales weights rarely ever come in under spec. They are usually higher, often by thousands of lbs.

sailingfun

Not if your going to sell it worldwide and 1500 miles quickly becomes 1000 miles with weather and alternates.
The last elephant in the room is the 16lb per passenger carry on allowance currently used. That's expected to go up another 10 lbs at some point. The last increase to 190lbs for passenger and carryon was back in 2005 before airlines started charging for checked bags.
Here is what SkyWest has to say since clearly you believe the Mitsubishi CEO does not understand the issue.
“Our conditional firm orders of the MRJ aircraft remain unchanged, and are dependent on flying contracts and scope availability,” a spokeswoman said in an email to LNC.
Mitsubishi lists the SkyWest order as firm on its web site.
MRJ90 exceeds scope limit
LNC noted in a post last week that US pilot contracts contain “scope clauses” that the MRJ90 exceeds the weight limit in the scope. This is the scope reference in the SkyWest statement.
SkyWest also ordered 100 Embraer E175-E2s. Entry-into-service of this aircraft was rescheduled to 2021 because scope clauses weren’t revised in recent labor contract agreements. The E2 also exceeds the 86,000 lb MTOW scope limit. The first SkyWest aircraft was originally scheduled for delivery in 2020.

Mesabah

You could merge with a regional, and operate unlimited MRJs at mainline.

gloopy

Or we could not merge with a regional and operate unlimited MRJ's at mainline.

gloopy