Talk:Mainline (air travel)

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Somebody has some confusion about what "mainline" means

How can an airline be classifed as "mainline" when it does not fly none "mainline" regional aircraft equipment in the first place?

Southwest Airlines, JetBlue Airlines, and AirTran do not at all need to be included with in this chart.

32.176.147.78 (talk) 13:14, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can understand your confusion. Southwest, AirTran and JetBlue all fly "mainline" equipment, which is differentiated from regional equipment by more than just seating capacity, they are just more robust in every way; longer range, more seat pitch, cargo capacity, etc. To illustrate my meaning, Bombardier now has overlapping 100-seaters on the market, the Cseries "mainline" jets and the CRJ1000 regional.

So when we need a term that describes airlines other than regional, we use "mainline." And when we want to exclude the low-cost carriers, we say "legacy."

We can't just use "major airline" (although we do, sometimes, to differentiate from "regional"), because it's too vague -- the DOT definition includes several regionals, and the term gets used in other ways as well.

Including carriers without regional networks makes it a more thorough chart, but if it's too confusing, or beyond the scope of this article, by all means take 'em out. or clarify if you think that would be an improvement.

Hope that helps...... Dusty.crockett (talk) 06:27, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, I have tried to sponsor a "Marketing Brands" page and navbar but it has been repeatedly denied and not been accepted. People actually still think UNITED EXPRESS, DELTA CONNECTION, and AMERICAN EAGLE among other are airlines. Part of the confusion probably is there are so many juvenilles and those on here not familiar with airline business, thus sometimes they get things wrong. This keeps things pretty clear as it is in my opinion. IT is not the most optimal arrangement but it seems to help, so I really do not see any problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.129.87.159 (talk) 03:46, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]