The Embraer E175 first flew more than two decades ago. Since then, it has been almost solely responsible for connecting hundreds of ‘small town’ American communities with the global airline network. The Brazilian-made E175 has approximately 80% market share in its regional jet class. This aircraft plays a vital role in keeping air travel accessible for underserved communities across the US.

The E175 dominates US regional flying not because it beats every rival in performance, but because it fits the industry’s economics while appealing to customers in a way no other plane can. The primary reason the E175 is the most popular regional jet in America comes down to ‘scope clauses’ that appear in the pilot agreements at American, Delta and United Airlines of the ‘big three.’ It limits the jets that partner airlines can fly under the major brands to 76 seats and a maximum takeoff weight of 86,000 lb (39,009 kg).

The E175 sits just inside both limits of the scope clauses, while Embraer’s newer E2 version does not. It offers airlines the maximum size, capacity, and comfort allowed by the policies of America’s biggest carriers, which is why SkyWest, Republic, and their peers keep buying a design that is two decades old. For instance, American Airlines is partnering with Envoy Air to fly the E175 to serve 174 airports across 43 states, making it a critical asset for US domestic air travel.

How Pilot Contracts Dictate The Airplane

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Major airlines rely on hub-and-spoke networks to move passengers efficiently, powered by large narrowbody planes like the Boeing 737 or Airbus A320. Yet these planes are too expensive and too difficult to fill on routes connecting small secondary cities to major airport hubs. The E175 bridges this gap for regional carriers like SkyWest Airlines, Republic Airways, and Envoy Air, offering high-frequency service from small airports to central hubs.

Scope clauses exist because unions wanted a contractual wall to stop airlines from pushing mainline pilot wages down in competition with regional carriers that pay far less. The ceiling on airframe size is the first part of a two-prong strategy to protect the wages of airline union members.

The other tool unions use is a contractual limit on how many airplanes in each class a primary air carrier can outsource. The numerical caps matter just as much as the size restriction. According to AeroXplorer, United may outsource no more than 255 aircraft with 51 to 76 seats, and no more than 153 of those may have 76 for its Union agreements.

American uses a different system. AA’s regional jets over 65 seats make up at most 40% of its narrowbody fleet. That equals a rough ceiling of about 320 aircraft. Air Insight reported that the standing limits at all Big Three airlines have been essentially unchanged since 2012, even though the pilot contracts themselves were updated in 2023.

Why The E175 Fits So Neatly Into US Airfields

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Historically, regional jets like the Bombardier CRJ200 or early Embraer ERJ145s were less popular with passengers because of their cramped, tube-like cabins and limited amenities. The E175 fundamentally changed that perception with its ‘double-bubble’ fuselage design. It provides enough seating capacity to stay highly profitable on lower-density routes without leaving dozens of empty seats.

The E175 has exactly 76 seats in the layout most US airlines choose, with 12 in first class and 64 in the main cabin. Seating runs two on each side of the aisle, so no passenger gets a middle seat. That creates a wider cabin with significantly more headroom and space, making the flight feel much closer to a narrowbody experience. Additionally, the E175 accommodates full-size overhead bins, features a famously quiet cabin, and even has a dual-cabin layout that lets airlines offer a First Class experience even on short commuter flights.

Over the last several years, competing programs like Bombardier’s CRJ series and Mitsubishi’s SpaceJet were entirely canceled or shut down. The evaporation of competition has solidified Embraer’s dominance of the market segment. As a result, every major US carrier now relies on the E175 to keep its regional operations running.

Many of those operators also keep the smaller ERJ145, a 50-seat jet, for routes where 76 seats would fly mostly empty. With no other 50-to-80-seat regional aircraft currently in production that can comply with US scope clauses, major airlines have doubled down on the E175. So, if the classic has been such a resounding success for so many years, why did Embraer introduce the E2 variant, which features newer technology and design upgrades but cannot be flown by the company’s biggest customers simply because of its dimensions?

The Scope Clause Roadblock

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Embraer has already designed a successor to its prolific ‘puddle jumper,’ the E175 E2, with larger geared turbofan engines and a new wing. Yet, because the US represents the largest commercial market for regional jets in the world, the inability to sell the E175-E2 to US airlines left the program with virtually zero initial customers. That has forced the planemaker to extend its development pause, pushing any potential program restart or entry into service out to 2029 or later.

Demand for the older jet remains strong in the US. Last year, Flight Global reported that an American Airlines order for 90 E175s, with options on 43 more. While the US regional sector is constrained by weight rules, international markets operate under different parameters. The E2 platform has become highly desirable outside the US despite its failed launch, thanks to fundamental design improvements.

The E2 generation delivers a 30% reduction in carbon emissions and a vastly decreased noise footprint during takeoff. On top of that, Pratt & Whitney’s geared turbofans allow the E2 to burn roughly 16% less fuel than the preceding generation. Outside the States, European carriers have been utilizing the larger E195-E2 as a small-capacity single-aisle carrier to pioneer new routes and fly lower-density schedules between major cities where an A320neo or 737 MAX would be overkill.

Embraer has also been candid about why airlines show no urgency. At its investor day in New York in November 2024, Arjan Meijer said the first-generation E175 was so good that the fuel savings from the E2 did not justify the challenges of rewriting union terms. The product succeeded so much that it blocked its own replacement from building a business case to break into the stagnant market.

What A Single Connection Means For A Small City

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The ‘bread and butter’ of E175 routes connects smaller communities to major airline hubs to serve ‘feeder’ legs from regional airfields. It excels in this mission because it balances trip-cost economics with the right-sized passenger capacity. A large mainline narrowbody like the Boeing 737-800 or 737 MAX 8 inherently achieves a lower Cost per Available Seat Mile because its fixed operating costs are substantially higher. Consequently, it requires two or three times as many customers per sortie to break even.

The Government Accountability Office reports that regional airlines operated one-third of all domestic flights in 2024 but carried just 14% of the country’s passengers. However, this vital connector role has been steadily shrinking for over two decades. Between 2000 and 2018, flight departures from regional fields dropped 32%, and non-hub airport departures plummeted by 47%.

GAO audits from 2018 through 2023 determined that flight traffic continued to drop while the number of seats per flight rose, illustrating that airlines are abandoning small regional jets and ‘up-gauging’ in favor of larger jets. The pandemic served to accelerate this crisis, cutting off small towns from commercial air service across the nation.

Major regional air carriers have abandoned dozens of destinations as pilots increasingly refuse to accept low pay and instead pursue careers at larger mainline carriers, which have been hiring more in recent years due to the current retirement wave of veteran captains. This severely damages local economies by bottlenecking or stopping the flow of leisure and business travelers. To help retain air crew, regional airlines nearly doubled starting first officer pay from $52 an hour in 2021 to $93 an hour by 2024.

While hiring slowdowns at major carriers have temporarily eased the pilot shortage, long-term threats loom. Over half of all currently certified pilots will reach the mandatory retirement age of 65 within the next 20 years, threatening another pilot shortage. Deep underlying pressures, such as rising operating costs, shrinking rural populations, and the corporate shift toward massive airframes, will continue to threaten regional air service.

Who Pays For The Restricted Puddle Jumper Flightline?

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Critics argue that strict regional jet weight limits hurt small communities by creating fewer flight options and higher fares. When union contracts cap regional capacity, it pushes operating costs directly onto travelers. This impact is most obvious at small local airports where a single regional jet makes up the entire daily flight schedule.

Isolating the exact cost is difficult, as weight limits are just one of many economic pressures squeezing small towns. Advocates of the current limits, particularly pilot unions, want to protect major airline jobs from being outsourced to lower-paying operators. Airlines want fleet flexibility, and planemakers like Embraer want to sell newer models, but unions see no incentive to trade secure pilot careers for modest airline efficiency gains.

Industry observers also argue that the data show relaxing these weight rules wouldn’t magically restore lost routes. Government audits show that rising labor costs, shrinking populations, and travelers choosing to drive to larger hubs are the real reasons regional service is declining. Because current airline orders show that carriers expect the classic E175 to fly for years, the two-decade-old puddle jumper will remain the lone link between small towns and global hubs until a major shift in America’s commercial flying industry unfolds.