At the launch of EXT routes last July, Jim French commented that the reasons for getting rid of the CRJ's were because of fuel economy. He said that a Q400 has operational costs similar to the latest 737's, in terms of £/seat/km. I would imagine that the commercial risk of only needing to fill 78 seats would be much lower too.
Does anyone know a good source of information on relative fuel economies of different aircaft types, especially as compared to travelling by car or train. These figures are not as widely available as for cars, but I would be interested to know more, in terms of environmental impact etc.
I wonder if recent protests about Coventry Airport would have been any different if TOM had been using Q400s? I somewhat doubt it, but would imagine that living next to an airport which only operated this a/c type would be a pretty quiet experience - I think its noise footprint is 1/20th of a 737-200.