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Regional airlines are airlines that operate regional aircraft to provide passenger air service to communities without sufficient demand to attract mainline service. There are two main ways for a regional airline to do business: #As an affiliated airline, contracting with a major airline, operating under their brand name, and filling two roles: delivering passengers to the major airline’s hubs from surrounding communities, known as ''regional feeds'', and increasing frequency of service on mainline routes during times when demand does not warrant use of large aircraft, known as ''commuter flights''. #Operating as an independent airline under their own brand, mostly providing service to small and isolated communities, for whom the airline is the only reasonable link to a larger town. Examples of this are Peninsula Airways, which links the remote Aleutian Islands to Anchorage, Alaska, and Mokulele Airlines, which operates in the Hawaiian islands. ==History== Regional airlines began by operating propeller-driven aircraft over short routes, sometimes on flights of less than 100 miles. In the early days of commercial aviation few aircraft had ranges greater than this, and airlines were often formed to serve the area in which they formed. That is, there was no strong distinction between a regional airline and any other airline. This changed with the introduction of long-range aircraft, which led to the development of the flag carrier airlines, such as British Overseas Airways Corporation and Trans-Canada Airlines. As the flag carriers grew in importance with increasing long-range passenger traffic, the smaller airlines found a niche flying passengers over short hops to the flag carrier's airport. This arrangement was eventually formalized, forming the regional airlines. Through the 1960s and 1970s, war surplus designs, notably the DC-3, were replaced by much more capable turboprop or jet-powered designs like the Fokker F27 Friendship or BAC One-Eleven. This extended the range of the regionals dramatically, causing a wave of consolidations between the now overlapping airlines. In the United States, regional airlines were an important building block of today's passenger air system. The U.S. Government encouraged the forming of regional airlines to provide services from smaller communities to larger towns, where air passengers could connect to a larger network. Some of the original regional airlines (then known as ''local service airlines") sanctioned by the Civil Aeronautics Board in the 1940s and 1950s include: *Allegheny Airlines *Bonanza Air Lines *Central Airlines *Frontier Airlines *Lake Central Airlines *Mohawk Airlines *North Central Airlines *Ozark Airlines *Pacific Air Lines *Pacific Southwest Airlines *Piedmont Airlines *Southern Airways *Southwest Airways (renamed Pacific Air Lines in 1958) *Trans-Texas Airways *West Coast Airlines None of these airlines survive today; some airlines use these names today but are not the direct successors to the original airlines. A history and study of regional airlines was published by the Smithsonian Institution Press in 1994 under the title ''Commuter Airlines of the United States'', by R.E.G. Davies and I. E. Quastler. One of the first independently owned and managed airlines in the world that rebranded its aircraft to match a larger airline's brand was Air Alpes of France. During 1974, Air Alpes painted its newly delivered short range regional jets in the livery of Air France. The success of the "rebranding" or "pseudo branding" of a much smaller airline into the name recognition of a much larger one soon became clear as passenger numbers soared at Air Alpes, and it was soon decided to paint other aircraft such as the Fokker F-27 into full Air France colours as well. Since the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, the US federal government has continued support of the regional airline sector to ensure many of the smaller and more isolated rural communities remain connected to air services. This is encouraged with the Essential Air Service program〔("Essential Air Service" ). ''U.S. Department of Transportation''. Office of Aviation Policy. DOT. Tuesday, April 29, 2014. Retrieved Thursday, July 24, 2014.〕 that subsidizes airline service to smaller U.S. communities and suburban centers, aiming to maintain year-round service. Although regional airlines in the United States are often viewed as small, not particularly lucrative "no name" subsidiaries of the mainline airlines, in terms of revenue, many would be designated major airline carrier status based on the only actual definition of "major airline," in the United States, the definition from the U.S. Department of Transportation. This definition is based solely on annual revenue and not on any other criterion such as average aircraft seating capacity, pilot pay, or number of aircraft in the fleet. It is common in the U.S. to incorrectly associate aircraft size with the Department of Transportation's designation of major, national, and regional airline. The only corollary is the Regional Airline Association, an industry trade group, defines "regional airlines" generally as "...operat(ing) short and medium haul scheduled airline service connecting smaller communities with larger cities and connecting hubs. The airlines' fleet primarily consists of 19 to 68 seat turboprops and 30 to 100 seat regional jets." To be clear there is no distinction in the Department of Transportation definition of major, national and regional airlines by aircraft size. The definition is based on revenue. The clash of definitions has led to confusion in the media and the public. Beginning around 1985, a number of trends have become apparent. Regional aircraft are getting larger, faster, and are flying longer ranges. Additionally, the vast majority of regionals within the United States with more than ten aircraft within their fleet, have lost their individual identities and now serve only as feeders, to Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, or United Airlines major hubs. Regional aircraft in the US have been getting slightly more comfortable with the addition of better ergonomically designed aircraft cabins, and the addition of varying travel classes aboard these aircraft. From small, less than 50-seat "single-class cabin" turboprop, to turbofan regional jet equipment, present day regional airlines provide aircraft such as the higher capacity CRJ700, CRJ900, CRJ1000 series of aircraft and the somewhat larger fuselage Embraer E-Jets. Some of these newer aircraft are capable of flying longer distances with comfort levels that rival and surpass the regional airline equipment of the past. In the early 1990s, much more advanced turboprop-powered, fuel efficient, and passenger friendly DC-3 type replacement projects such as the 19 passenger Embraer/FMA CBA 123 Vector and the 34 seat Dornier 328 were undertaken, but met little financial success, partly due to economic downturn in the airline industry resulting from the outbreak of hostilities when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Many of the regional airlines operating turboprop equipment such as Delta's regional sister Comair airlines in the United States set the course for bypassing entirely the regional turboprops as they became the first to transition to an all-jet regional jet fleet. To a lesser extent in Europe and the United Kingdom this transition, to notably the Embraer or Canadair designs, was well advanced by the late 1990s. This evolution towards jet equipment, brought the independent regional airlines into direct competition with the major airlines, forcing additional consolidation. To improve on their market penetration, larger airline holding companies rely on operators of smaller aircraft to provide service or added frequency service to some airports. Such airlines, often operating in code-share arrangements with mainline airlines, often completely repaint () their aircraft fleet in the mainline airline's sub-brand livery. For example, United Express regional airline partner CommutAir branded its entire fleet as United Express. On the other hand, regional airline Gulfstream International Airlines does not brand their aircraft. When Colgan Air was still operating, they branded a handful of aircraft as Colgan Air, but most were branded as Continental Connection, US Airways Express or United Express, with whom it had contractual agreements. Many airline passengers find sub-branding very confusing, while many other airline passengers are content to think they are on a mainline or flagship airline's aircraft, while in actuality they are far from it. Sub-branding is pretty consistent throughout the airline industry of the United States, with all the regional airlines, mainline airlines, and the regional airline holding companies, as well as the mainline airlines holding companies participating. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「regional airline」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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