United Airlines has just made several passenger experience announcements, and among those is a plan to turn one of the most unpopular regional jets into a pleasant ride. However, I’m curious what the real motive is here…
In this post:
United rebrands the CRJ-200 as the CRJ-450, upgrades it
The CRJ-200 is probably the least pleasant regional jet you’ll find flying, at least in the United States. These planes generally have just 50 seats, with no first class, no Wi-Fi, etc. The reality is that a lot fewer of these are flying than in the past, and they’re typically used for the absolute lowest demand and least premium markets. Well, United is planning on changing that… at least the premium part.
United has unveiled the CRJ-450, which is really just a rebranding of the CRJ-200. These planes will fly for United Express, which is how the carrier’s regional jet fights are marketed. While the CRJ-200 has a 50-seat all-economy cabin, the CRJ-450 will have just 41 seats, including seven first class seats and 34 economy class seats (including Economy Plus seating). By 2028, United expects to have more than 50 of these planes flying.
In a first for a US commercial airline, the overhead bins in first class will be removed in favor of a larger luggage closet, to create a more spacious environment. Meanwhile the economy cabin will feature overhead bins large enough to fit larger carry-on bags, which is otherwise unheard of on these planes. United is also introducing Starlink Wi-Fi on these planes, which is free for MileagePlus members.
Think of this as being similar to the CRJ-550, which United started flying in 2019. That was a rebranding of the CRJ-700, with the idea being that the plane was reconfigured with just 50 seats, instead of the standard 76 seats.
Why voluntarily reduce capacity on the CRJ-700 by one-third? Well, the primary motive was to get around the scope clause, whereby United has an agreement with its pilots that limits the number of 51+ seat regional jets that can be flown by United Express. So by reducing the capacity to 50 seats, those planes no longer counted toward the limit on the number of 51-76 seat planes the carrier’s regional subsidiary can operate.
What’s United’s real motive with these CRJ-450s?
There’s no denying that the CRJ-200 is one of the most disliked aircraft out there, and when it’s in a one-cabin configuration, it’s especially unpleasant. United is really invested in trying to create a consistent and premium experience (in order to win brand loyal customers, and make more money on loyalty), so it’s understandable that if the airline wants to keep these planes around, something needed to be done.
That being said, I can’t help but be a little skeptical about the motives here:
- 41 seats is just a very low capacity aircraft, and I question how profitably these can be operated, especially since regional jet operating costs aren’t as low as they used to be
- Generally these very small regional jets aren’t operating in premium markets with a significant amount of first class demand, or in markets where there’s a lot of competition; so I can’t imagine the airline will get much of a revenue premium for this
- With congestion at major airports increasingly being a major problem, isn’t there a point at which flying planes with a little over a few dozen seats to airports like Chicago O’Hare (ORD) is a bit irresponsible, in terms of trying to promote a reliable network?
Would it be unreasonable to think that a major motivation with keeping these planes around and even growing the fleet is the battle in Chicago between American and United? Keep in mind that Chicago O’Hare allocates gates based on past usage. It’s not the number of passengers carried, but literally the extent to which gates are used.
United CEO Scott Kirby has made it clear that he’s “drawing a line in the sand,” and won’t let American grow market share there at all. So if you want to essentially maintain your gates with as low of a cost as possible, flying small planes is a really good way to do that. At a minimum, I can’t imagine that’s not a factor here.
It’s not like O’Hare is the most profitable hub for American or United (it’s much worse for American than United, though), but this is definitely a market that both airlines think they need to defend.
Bottom line
United Airlines plans to introduce the CRJ-450, which is essentially a rebranding of the CRJ-200. With this, we’ll see the hated 50-seat all-economy plane reconfigured with just 41 seats. That’s because we’ll see seven first class seats, and closets for bags in first class. On top of that, we’ll also finally see Starlink Wi-Fi on these planes, plus big overhead bins in economy.
While I’m skeptical of the direct economics of operating these planes, it does make sense in the overall context of United’s premium push, plus having a plane that can “hog” slots or gates as efficiently as possible.
What do you make of United’s CRJ-450s, and what do you think the motive is here?
I don’t get it…. a shoe box is a shoe box regardless of its designation. This rebranding makes little to no sense to me, sorry.
I wonder if there will be enough closet space for peoples stuff. I wonder how people would feel about their stuff not being near them.
I think you underestimate the number of people that come from small cities to a hub that are flying international business. I can’t count the number of times that the end of my trip is on a CRJ with no domestic first class. It’s always a downer that the final hour of my what is sometimes a 48+ hour journey ends on a tiny regional jet.
If I had the choice between ending my...
I think you underestimate the number of people that come from small cities to a hub that are flying international business. I can’t count the number of times that the end of my trip is on a CRJ with no domestic first class. It’s always a downer that the final hour of my what is sometimes a 48+ hour journey ends on a tiny regional jet.
If I had the choice between ending my long haul journey or starting it with a carrier that had a domestic 1st product vs none I’m gonna pick the one with a 1st class product.
Will they operate with one F/A as most CRJ-200s do now? 7 F seats on a short flight is a lot for one person to handle, much less provide service in Y cabin.
The planes are ancient and burn lots of fuel, not good in a high cost environment.
Perhaps to grab some of the college sports team charter flying?
And the Flight Attendants will stand around chit chatting, while Economy passengers fill up the Business luggage rack. You can see this all the time. US Airlines are way to passive about preserving the slight advantages of their Business Class (like the endless stream of people running up front to use the facilities). And don't say it can't be done, Asian airlines do a great job of keeping people in their assigned cabin.
I wonder if they’ll do the same thing with the ERJ-145 fleet? I’ve read before that these are often payload limited to less than 50 pax, so it could be a useful way to extract more revenue per flight.
V/F
The ERJ-145 is the worst RJ.
I'm sure some of the load data shows that they don't fly with near 50 pax for various factors outside of pure demand. Weight and balance are often factors on these planes. And they are not only used on super short and skinny. They do fly these supplemented with mainline A320s on ORD-CMH as an example.
Either way, for a normie passenger that doesn't care about yields or industry specifics, it will be a big improvement.
The issue is scope clauses, fo which United has the most strict one limiting the amount of specific regional aircraft, but with no limit on 50 seaters, and I’m assuming there’s just so many CRJ-700s they can get a hold of, while still trying to keep that push towards going all 0 on single class aircraft like delta
UA & DL pilots have the exact same scope on 70/76 seat RJs. UA has chosen not to buy the small narrow body mainline aircraft like A220s like DL did that would allow more UAX 76 seat RJs.
Skywest has 105 CRJ-200s that are 20-25 years old and 65 of which have been in storage so they want to squeeze the last bits of value from them. UA wants to be able to offer a 'premium' end-to-end product to high-yield customers in small spoke cities. UA obviously believes this type of things work as they have plenty of CRJ-550 data and they have steadily increased the number of those over the last seven years.
Yes I could see that, and it also just generally fits with the increased regional frequencies UA is adding from ORD to various small/mid-sized Midwestern cities (I wouldn't be surprised if we see a little bit of increased regional frequencies out of DEN at some point too). If you're going to fly a few times daily to places like Springfield or Grand Rapids, in each case connecting to/from a bank of mainline flights at ORD, this would be the logical plane to use.
Wish they'd also kept the overhead up-front, because there's often backpacks and other items, which could be stored up there.
This article's pictures do not show it but there's a cabinet on top of the carryone storage (for the 7 pax) that will fit most of the back packs, only Row 1 will require w no underseat storage...
Looks like a nice conversion for a previously uncomfortable experience.
You’d be surprised with the amount of premium traffic that connects into the long haul Polaris markets from these smaller cities. Plus this was years in the making that precedes the ORD turf war.
This will attract small town frequent flyers to be royal to UA. Nice upgrade odds and now with Y+ (wiki says 16 seats or 4 rows of economy plus planned)
I can see some logic here. As an example I have family in Akron, which right now receives the dreaded CRJ2 from United. Ok it's not the most premium market. But on connections to other short flights thru Chicago, nobody is going to book First. On longer flights, United will need to offer cheaper fares than American, who fly CRJ7/9s with First to Akron. There's also more motivation right now for locals to have status...
I can see some logic here. As an example I have family in Akron, which right now receives the dreaded CRJ2 from United. Ok it's not the most premium market. But on connections to other short flights thru Chicago, nobody is going to book First. On longer flights, United will need to offer cheaper fares than American, who fly CRJ7/9s with First to Akron. There's also more motivation right now for locals to have status with American over United because of the first class availability.
Now apply this logic to another 50 destinations, and United probably see the potential to make more money with the premium cabins, compete better with American or Delta in a few markets, and earn more thu Mileage Plus in the long run. Can see this working out