The air-related aspect of this thread is that these domestic routes require a steady flow of business PAX whose businesses will pay premium fares for flexible travel, allowing a few leisure PAX to get lower fares. We have got so used to travelling for peanuts that we baulk at the realistic fares which an operator of smaller a/c must charge. Their margins are always going to be thin at best. Any transfer to another mode may make the whole route collapse - they can't reduce frequencies without losing even more PAX....