United Express just added a LAX-SBP-LAX trip. I’m a bit surprised they would do that going into the dead season, business must be getting better.
John in Saudi
I’ll bet just the airline is improving, not the rest of the economy… 
… 
SkyWest/UAX have been pulling Brasilias from other routes in California (such as LAX-SAN). So it could be they had extra Brasilias in the schedule and putting it on SBP might’ve been a better option than sitting it.
That makes sense. I never understood why they pulled the SBP-LAX overnight off the schedule in the first place, especially right after American Eagle pulled out completely.
Just saw where Mesa filed Chapter 11 but plan to keep flying.
KSBP can have the E120s, KSBA needs the intra-California CRJs back.
Agreed, SBA to SFO is quite within the capability of the 120 but the RJ makes sense at that length.
The time difference between the 120 and an RJ is minimal on a route this short. Perhaps they need an increase in capacity so this is the reason for the RJ?
yeah, maybe 10 minutes difference. But given SFOs weather delays the fewer flights with more seats the better. Not that the airlines think that way…
The airlines would love to do fewer flights with more seats but the market doesn’t like that. Passengers in general and business travelers in particular prefer more frequent flights. Of course, they also prefer more frequent flights on larger aircraft. If passengers had their way, every flight would be a wide body - even SBA to SFO or LAX.
No doubt about that. Although at this point they are still only flying 120’s on that route. I take that back, on occasion I see an RJ but don’t know if it is because of loads or they needed a replacement aircraft. United used to fly 3 or 4 737’s on that route plus 2 727’s to Denver and one or two to ORD, so the business is there. At least it was up until Reagan retired all the controllers!
Frank probably remembers all the UA flights at Fresno in those days.
But the noise and comfort are a world apart. Sometimes they’d even sub a CRJ7 from KSFO.