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Regional Jet Guide
Every regional jet in Tailwinds compared: seats, range, lease cost, fuel burn, and per-seat economics. Build profitable thin routes and hub feed.
Regional jets solve a specific problem: routes with real demand, but not enough of it to fill a 150-seat narrow-body. In Tailwinds that describes a huge share of the map — secondary cities, short cross-border hops, and above all hub feed, the short flights that funnel connecting passengers into your hub for onward long-haul travel.
Per-seat costs run higher than larger jets; that is the price of right-sizing. A regional jet is not competing with an A320 on cost per seat — it is competing with the empty seats the A320 would fly on a thin route. Judged that way, the category is one of the most reliably profitable in the game.
How to choose
The E-Jets and the larger CRJs cover the 78–146 seat band, from the CRJ-700 up to the E195-E2; the E2 generation offers materially better burn for a higher lease. At the small end, the 37–52 seat jets (the ERJ-135, ERJ-145 and CRJ-200) only make sense on very thin or very short missions where nothing bigger could break even. As always: pick the seat count the route can fill, not the one with the prettiest efficiency number.
Business jets
Four business jets sit in this table too — the Citation CJ4, Phenom 300E, Challenger 350 and Gulfstream G650ER. They are not regional jets in any commercial sense: ten or nineteen seats behind jet engines make for some of the worst per-seat fuel figures in the game (the Challenger 350's is the worst of all, and only Concorde separates it from the G650ER), and none of them will ever pay on a scheduled route. They exist for the charter board, where executive contracts demand a business jet and price against one, and where a light jet parked at the right airport can turn a fixed fee into a profit that no airliner could. Treat them as a sideline, not a fleet.
All 30 aircraft at a glance
Figures are the game's actual values. Fuel cost assumes the base fuel price of $1.45/litre — the live market price in your save drifts between roughly half and nearly double that, which is why fuel hedging matters. Lease and price are the classic-game market rates. Any type whose production line closed in 1976 or earlier is buy-only, because no lessor stocks it, so ignore its lease column. In an era game the calendar takes over: a type appears the year it entered service, lessors only take it from ten years after that (the war-surplus C-46, C-47 and DC-4 excepted), and prices shift with the year.
| Aircraft | Seats | Range | Cruise | Lease/wk | Price | Fuel/100km | Fuel/seat-km | Fuel rank | Lease/seat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Challenger 350 | 10 | 5,926 km at 8 seats (5,700 km at 10) | 800 km/h | $52K | $27M | 118 L | 17.11¢ | 30 / 30 | $5,200 |
| Citation CJ4 | 10 | 3,710 km at 4 seats (2,700 km at 10) | 800 km/h | $21K | $11M | 77 L | 11.09¢ | 27 / 30 | $2,100 |
| Phenom 300E | 10 | 3,724 km at 4 seats (2,700 km at 10) | 800 km/h | $20K | $10M | 70 L | 10.15¢ | 26 / 30 | $1,950 |
| Gulfstream G650ER | 19 | 13,890 km at 8 seats (13,200 km at 19) | 800 km/h | $135K | $70M | 205 L | 15.64¢ | 29 / 30 | $7,105 |
| Yakovlev Yak-40 | 32 | 1,800 km at 27 seats (1,600 km at 32) | 800 km/h | $7K | $3M | 280 L | 12.66¢ | 28 / 30 | $219 |
| Dornier 328JET | 34 | 1,665 km at 32 seats (1,500 km at 34) | 800 km/h | $17K | $7M | 160 L | 6.82¢ | 24 / 30 | $500 |
| Embraer ERJ-135 | 37 | 3,241 km | 800 km/h | $15K | $6M | 138 L | 5.39¢ | 22 / 30 | $405 |
| Embraer ERJ-145 | 50 | 2,870 km | 800 km/h | $19K | $8M | 175 L | 5.08¢ | 20 / 30 | $380 |
| CRJ-200 | 52 | 3,048 km at 50 seats (2,900 km at 52) | 800 km/h | $12K | $5M | 165 L | 4.59¢ | 16 / 30 | $231 |
| CRJ-700 | 78 | 3,716 km at 70 seats (3,300 km at 78) | 800 km/h | $29K | $12M | 220 L | 4.09¢ | 12 / 30 | $372 |
| Embraer ERJ-170 | 80 | 3,735 km at 70 seats (3,100 km at 80) | 800 km/h | $35K | $18M | 207 L | 3.75¢ | 7 / 30 | $438 |
| Fokker 70 | 85 | 3,410 km at 79 seats (3,200 km at 85) | 800 km/h | $17K | $7M | 315 L | 5.37¢ | 21 / 30 | $200 |
| Fokker F28 Fellowship | 85 | 2,700 km at 65 seats (2,100 km at 85) | 800 km/h | $12K | $5M | 389 L | 6.63¢ | 23 / 30 | $141 |
| Embraer E175 | 88 | 3,735 km at 76 seats (3,100 km at 88) | 800 km/h | $60K | $30M | 232 L | 3.82¢ | 8 / 30 | $682 |
| Antonov An-148-100B | 89 | 3,500 km at 75 seats (2,800 km at 89) | 800 km/h | $32K | $18M | 251 L | 4.09¢ | 13 / 30 | $360 |
| CRJ-900 | 90 | 2,876 km at 76 seats (2,200 km at 90) | 800 km/h | $43K | $18M | 250 L | 4.03¢ | 11 / 30 | $478 |
| Embraer E175-E2 | 90 | 3,735 km at 88 seats (3,600 km at 90) | 800 km/h | $70K | $35M | 199 L | 3.21¢ | 3 / 30 | $778 |
| Mitsubishi SpaceJet M90 | 92 | 3,770 km at 88 seats (3,600 km at 92) | 800 km/h | $80K | $40M | 235 L | 3.70¢ | 5 / 30 | $870 |
| Tupolev Tu-134 | 96 | 3,000 km at 50 seats (1,700 km at 96) | 800 km/h | $20K | $8M | 453 L | 6.85¢ | 25 / 30 | $208 |
| COMAC ARJ21-700 | 97 | 3,700 km at 90 seats (3,400 km at 97) | 800 km/h | $44K | $22M | 256 L | 3.82¢ | 9 / 30 | $448 |
| CRJ-1000 | 104 | 3,004 km at 100 seats (2,800 km at 104) | 800 km/h | $51K | $22M | 281 L | 3.92¢ | 10 / 30 | $490 |
| Sukhoi Superjet 100 | 108 | 4,578 km at 98 seats (4,200 km at 108) | 800 km/h | $56K | $28M | 347 L | 4.66¢ | 17 / 30 | $519 |
| Sukhoi Superjet SJ-100 | 108 | 3,530 km at 98 seats (3,200 km at 108) | 800 km/h | $75K | $38M | 355 L | 4.77¢ | 19 / 30 | $694 |
| Avro RJ85 | 112 | 3,300 km at 100 seats (2,900 km at 112) | 800 km/h | $19K | $8M | 345 L | 4.47¢ | 15 / 30 | $170 |
| BAe 146-200 | 112 | 3,650 km at 100 seats (3,200 km at 112) | 800 km/h | $17K | $7M | 365 L | 4.73¢ | 18 / 30 | $152 |
| Embraer E190 | 114 | 4,537 km at 100 seats (3,900 km at 114) | 800 km/h | $55K | $24M | 293 L | 3.73¢ | 6 / 30 | $482 |
| Embraer E190-E2 | 114 | 5,460 km at 106 seats (5,000 km at 114) | 800 km/h | $80K | $40M | 242 L | 3.08¢ | 2 / 30 | $702 |
| Fokker 100 | 122 | 3,170 km at 107 seats (2,600 km at 122) | 800 km/h | $22K | $9M | 355 L | 4.22¢ | 14 / 30 | $180 |
| Embraer E195 | 124 | 4,260 km at 116 seats (3,900 km at 124) | 800 km/h | $60K | $26M | 302 L | 3.53¢ | 4 / 30 | $484 |
| Embraer E195-E2 | 146 | 5,600 km at 132 seats (4,900 km at 146) | 800 km/h | $89K | $45M | 265 L | 2.63¢ | 1 / 30 | $610 |
Six regional jets that earn their keep
Thirty types are listed above, four of them business jets, and most of them are wrong for you in any given week. Six repay the money: one for an empty balance sheet, one for a mature network, one that flatters itself badly on the stat table, and three that quietly do the work. Match seats to demand, range to mission, and only then argue about price.
Fokker 100 — the first jet you can actually afford
Nine million dollars buys one outright, which is precisely the wrong move when your bank shows ten. Lease instead at $22,000 a week and you have handed yourself 409 weeks — close to eight years of turns — before the payments add up to the sticker price. In the meantime you are flying 122 seats, the third-largest cabin in the regional fleet behind only the E195 and the E195-E2, both of which cost several times as much. Fuel is the surprise: 4.22 cents per seat-kilometre undercuts the Sukhoi Superjet 100 at $56,000 a week and the SJ-100 at $75,000.
What leaves your account each week is lease plus maintenance — and the Fokker arrives ten years old, so maintenance starts at $41,700 rather than the $27,800 base. That makes $63,700, which spread over 122 seats is $522 a seat. Only the Avro RJ85 holds a seat for less, and it burns more fuel. The catch is where it can go. Range stops at 3,170 kilometres, so nothing long. It wants 5,900 feet of runway, so nothing small. And 122 seats is a great many to fill on a thin spoke, where you pay $522 for the empty ones just the same. Give it dense secondary-city pairs, not hub feed.
Embraer ERJ-170 — the hub-feed workhorse
If one type on this list is mispriced in your favour, it is this one. Eighty seats, 3,735 kilometres, a 4,300-foot field requirement, $35,000 a week. Now look directly at the E175 next to it in the fuel order: 88 seats, the identical 3,735-kilometre range, and Embraer wants $60,000. That is $25,000 a week for eight extra seats — $3,125 per seat per week — while burning slightly more fuel, 3.82 cents against 3.75, and demanding 400 feet more runway. There is no reading of that trade where the E175 wins.
The ERJ-170 arrives six years old, so its maintenance starts at $25,960 — a touch above the factory-fresh E175's $25,600, nowhere near enough to rescue the newer jet's lease. Lease and maintenance together come to $60,960, or $762 a seat, and eighty seats is close to the natural size of a feed market — big enough to be worth the slot, small enough to fill on a Tuesday morning. The 4,300-foot runway opens secondary fields the E195 cannot touch at 5,900 feet. Range is the honest weakness: 3,735 kilometres rules out the long thin cross-border work, so pair it with something with legs. Buy at $18M once cash flow is genuinely steady, which the lease equals in 514 weeks.
Embraer E190 — long legs without the E2 price
Sooner or later a pair you want sits 4,500 kilometres apart and most of this list simply cannot reach it. The E190 does 4,537 kilometres, and only three regional airliners go further: the E195-E2 at 5,600, the E190-E2 at 5,460 and the Superjet 100 at 4,578. It leases at $55,000 and arrives five years old, so maintenance starts at $37,125: $92,125 a week, $808 a seat, for 114 seats at 3.73 cents per seat-kilometre, sixth on the table.
Set it beside the Superjet and the gap is embarrassing. The Sukhoi leases for $1,000 more, carries six fewer people and burns 4.66 cents; its lighter maintenance makes it $2,861 a week cheaper to hold, but the E190 burns about 78 cents less per kilometre and wins that back within about 3,700 km of flying a week. The real rival is the E190-E2: the same 114 seats, 5,460 kilometres, 3.08 cents and a 4,400-foot runway against the E190's 5,700, for $22,275 a week more. The E2 saves about 74 cents a kilometre, so it only pays once the aircraft flies roughly 30,000 km a week. Below that, the older jet is the better lease. One caution: fuel efficiency you can shrug at when the market sits at $1.45 a litre becomes the whole argument when the market drifts towards double that — the higher fuel climbs, the fewer kilometres the E2 needs.
BAe 146-200 — the short-field key
Below 4,000 feet of runway your airliner choices collapse to two, and only one of them carries a useful number of people. The 146-200 puts 112 seats into 3,900-foot fields that lock out almost everything else on this page: the Avro RJ85 needs 4,000 feet, the ERJ-170 4,300, the E195 a full 5,900. The only airliner that lands shorter is the Yakovlev Yak-40 at 3,300 feet, which seats 32 and burns 12.66 cents per seat-kilometre — nearly five times the E195-E2's 2.63, and the worst of any regional airliner. Only the two largest business jets, the Challenger 350 and G650ER, do worse.
The money is modest: $17,000 a week and $7M outright, though it arrives twelve years old, so maintenance starts at $45,408 and the fixed cost is $62,408, or $557 a seat — the third-lowest on this table, behind the RJ85 and the Fokker 100. Be disciplined about it, though. Where the runway allows an RJ85 instead, take the RJ85: 100 feet more concrete buys 4.47 cents rather than 4.73, and because the Avro arrives two years younger, its fixed bill is $5,008 a week lower too ($57,400). There is no trade-off at all. Treat the 146 as a key rather than a fleet — it unlocks airports, and its 3,650-kilometre range means those spokes can be surprisingly long ones.
Embraer E195-E2 — the efficiency leader you grow into
Nothing else in the regional fleet comes near 2.63 cents per seat-kilometre. The E190-E2 is next at 3.08 and burns 17% more; the worst regional airliner burns nearly five times as much. Put that on a 5,600-kilometre sector — the longest reach available to any regional airliner — with all 146 seats sold, and against a mid-table 4.09-cent aircraft you are roughly $11,900 better off per flight before you have sold a single ticket. That advantage grows every time the fuel market climbs above $1.45 a litre, which it does often, and by a lot.
Its lease and price are the highest of any regional airliner: $89,000 a week and $45M to buy, plus $39,600 in maintenance. Held together that is $128,600 a week, $881 a seat — steep, but still less per seat than the E175-E2's $1,051 or the SpaceJet M90's $1,157, which is exactly the argument for it. Purchase takes 506 weeks of lease payments to justify, so lease until the network stops changing shape. The genuine hurdle is the cabin. A 146-seat aeroplane is not a regional aircraft on a thin spoke, and each empty seat still costs $881; it wants markets where a narrow-body is nearly right, or feed dense enough to fill twice daily. Pleasingly, 4,850 feet of runway is less than a 90-seat CRJ-900 needs, so the size costs you no airports. See route economics before you commit.
Embraer E175-E2 — the efficiency trap
Read the fuel column alone and this looks like the third-best aircraft on the table: 3.21 cents per seat-kilometre, beaten only by the two larger E2s. Read the lease column and it inverts. Seventy thousand dollars a week across 90 seats is $778 per seat, while the E195 asks $60,000 across 124 seats, which is $484 — you are paying 61% more per seat for the privilege, and the fuel edge you bought is 0.32 cents per seat-kilometre. On a 1,500-kilometre sector with every seat sold, that edge returns about $432 a flight.
To be fair to it, the sums are not one-sided. The E2 arrives new while the E195 arrives five years old, so maintenance is far kinder, $24,600 against $41,850, and the total weekly hold is $94,600 versus $101,850. The trouble is what the money buys: 90 seats at $1,051 each, against 124 at $821. Thirty-four extra seats for $7,250 a week, about $213 each, is not a close decision. Nor can it lean on distance to redeem the burn, since it stops at 3,735 kilometres where its bigger siblings reach 5,460 and 5,600, and efficiency pays hardest over range. One case justifies it: a 4,700-foot field the E195 cannot use, serving a market that truly tops out near 90 passengers. Outside that window, the stat table is flattering you.
Every type in the category
Reference entries for all 30, in the same order as the table. The table above carries seats, range, cruise speed, lease, price and fuel; these add the runway each type needs and its base weekly maintenance bill. That base is for a factory-fresh frame: out-of-production types arrive second-hand, already years old, and their maintenance starts higher (the market screen in the game quotes the delivered figure).
Challenger 350
Super-midsize business jet. Ten seats, transcontinental range and a flat floor — the workhorse of the executive charter market.
Citation CJ4
Light business jet. Cheap to own, quick to turn, and happy on a 3,400 ft strip — the entry ticket to executive charter work.
Phenom 300E
The best-selling light jet of its generation. A touch more frugal than the CJ4, and it works out of the shortest fields in the class.
Gulfstream G650ER
Ultra-long-range business jet. Nineteen seats and nearly 14,000 km — the only thing on this list that can take an executive party non-stop across the Pacific.
Yakovlev Yak-40
Tiny three-engine regional jet that opened jet service to small Soviet towns.
Dornier 328JET
Jet-powered 328, one of the smallest regional jets ever in airline service.
Embraer ERJ-135
Smallest ERJ family member. Good for very thin jet routes.
Embraer ERJ-145
Small regional jet, good for thin routes that need jet speed.
CRJ-200
The backbone of North American regionals. Low capacity but ubiquitous.
CRJ-700
Stretched CRJ with better economics per seat than the -200.
Embraer ERJ-170
First of the E-jet family. Comfortable twin-aisle-style interior.
Fokker 70
Short-body Fokker 100. Fuel-efficient and popular in European regionals.
Fokker F28 Fellowship
Dutch short-haul jet with built-in airstairs, forerunner of the Fokker 70/100.
Embraer E175
Versatile E-jet. Great range-to-size ratio for regional networks.
Antonov An-148-100B
Ukrainian regional jet with exceptional range for its class. Suited to CIS networks.
CRJ-900
Popular regional jet bridging the gap between turboprops and mainline aircraft.
Embraer E175-E2
Next-gen E175 with improved fuel burn. Better economics than the original.
Mitsubishi SpaceJet M90
Japan's regional jet entry with modern technology and efficient design.
Tupolev Tu-134
Soviet short-haul jet, glass-nosed navigator station and all. A Cold War regional staple.
COMAC ARJ21-700
China's first domestically produced regional jet. Growing presence on domestic routes.
CRJ-1000
Largest CRJ. High seat count in the regional jet class.
Sukhoi Superjet 100
Russian regional jet with competitive specs. Strong presence in CIS markets.
Sukhoi Superjet SJ-100
Import-substituted update of the Superjet 100 with Russian systems and engines.
Avro RJ85
Upgraded BAe 146 with FADEC engines. Quieter and more reliable than its predecessor.
BAe 146-200
Quiet quad-jet with exceptional short-field performance. Perfect for city airports.
Embraer E190
Larger E-jet with solid range, perfect for medium-thin routes.
Embraer E190-E2
Re-engined E190 with 17% better fuel burn. Best-in-class regional economics.
Fokker 100
Dutch narrow-body workhorse. Still flying on many regional routes worldwide.
Embraer E195
Largest of the original E-jet family. Bridges regional jets and narrow-bodies on medium-thin routes.
Embraer E195-E2
Next-gen E-jet with improved fuel efficiency. Bridges regional and narrow-body.