Originally Posted by
DaveReidUK
The SAAB 2000 is a considerably stretched and re-engined development of the 340, so it's not really surprising it was given a new name.
Quite so. One of the significant differences was it was much faster. Of course, this all impacted on the operating costs. It ended up being too expensive overall, and didn't sell nearly as many.
The Saab 340 did hit a commercial sweet spot. Commonly 34 seats 2+1, it was an upgrade from the myriad 19-seaters, without having the costs of a 48-seater like the F-27 or 748, where a number of such types were getting long in the tooth. It also looked like a "proper" airliner. I think Saab (not an established airliner producer) built well over 400 of them in the 1980s-90s. One of its downsides was a notably slow cruise speed. It beat the 19-seaters, but got assigned to quite a number of more mainstream routes over time. The pax maybe didn't notice that much, but it couldn't do the number of rotations per day desired. A good number of lesser "business" routes need a morning and an evening rotation each way, and if the aircraft is slow one direction, or the other, ends up running at sub-optimal times.