ICT_SLB
Indeed yes, the breakeven cost of the CRJ looks impressive by that statistic. The regional jets have made big inroads into the turboprop market by their speed and low cost per ASK.
But the devil is in the detail. The Canadian breakeven analysis has built-in assumptions about fare levels per km, and it must assume high aircraft utilisation. If the market supports those assumptions (far be it from me to say in a rich and busy country), then the RJs will dominate.
In fact there is a feeling around that based on announced fleet replacement plans, the USA regional operators are likely to be almost completely regional jet-equipped by the second half of the decade. The RJ’s popularity in the USA is fed by intensive competition (and not to be forgetting the rich and busy bit).
The same laws of market preference do not apply to low-demand markets. Competition will be from alternative forms of transport, and these can get rather low in cost. These services are likely to be served by either independent operators or franchises (and these can also get rather low in cost). Such organisations are driven much more by cost than the ‘prestige’ of new aircraft. In many cases they will be funded through subsidies from either national or local governments, so cost is the key to gain the contract. If it is a low-demand market, the subsidy is going to be 'low-rent' to match the market. Frequencies are not usually intensive, which means the utilisation is probably way down from the Canadian assumptions, and the speed advantage of regional jets becomes less important.
This is the turboprop market. Notwithstanding the value of the technology and performance advantage of the RJs, I am somehow seized by mental imagery of a turboprop aircraft soaring with flash of glinting wings in a steel blue sky, high above the tiny shape below of Clint Eastwood riding on a donkey through the desert and cacti in some spaghetti western. The image is not helped by the recent replacement of jets by turboprops on some internal Spanish services. Lucky Spaniards. In my country, we're still hoping to upgrade from piston-engined Navajos.