"Typically, our competitor's aircraft are turbo prop - from Brisbane to Emerald takes about one hour 40 minutes in a typical Dash-8. Our flights are approximately 50 minutes," the spokesman said.
The typical Dash 8 referred to by the spokesman is probably a SkyTrans DHC-8-100. The old 100 models TAS at 245-255 in typical Queensland ISA+ conditions. Other FIFO competitor operators, however, fly faster turbos and make the BNE-EML trip a lot quicker.
Certified high speed cruise in an EMB 135/140/145 is 444 KTAS. This isn't a speed you would fly around at if you wanted to make, rather than lose money. A more realistic cruise speed for this aircraft is M0.72 (around 425 KTAS) and at that speed, 50 minutes chock to chock BNE-EML is very optimistic.
Either way the fuel burn on a 37-50 seat RJ is prohibitive on a 50 minute sector and unless the RJ airframe is owned outright by 'JetGo' eventually turbo price competitiveness will see off such competition.
The Oracle