De Havilland Dash 8
 

I will flying with Continental Airlines from GCM to BWI with a layover in EWR and my flight from EWR will be on a De Havilland Dash 8 and I was just checking my flight times and I noticed that they have me in business class. I thought De Havillands dont have a business class. Am I wrong.

I know I did not pay for business class seat and there are economny seats available.

EWR-BWI on CO's new Dash 8 Q400 will be single-class only. All coach, no business or first.

Thanks rkkwan. I did not know that this plan is new. Is that good or bad??

It's a large 74-seat turboprop. In North America, the big operator is Horizon out in the northwest. It uses noise cancellation technology to make the cabin quieter than earlier turboprop, and its engines and blade designs allow it to climb very quickly. The cabin is also slightly modified from earlier Dash 8s.

So, it's an improvement over the earlier Dash 8s and other turboprops. Continental are using them to replace 50-seat Embraer regional jets on the shorter routes out of EWR and CLE. More seats, and these planes can fly at lower altitude and can use different arrival and departure routes. So, they are less prone than the ERJs to the legendary delays at NYC-area airports, or at least that's the theory.

However, another large operator, SAS, has suffered several accidents with the main gear collapsing. In fact, they've grounded their whole fleet and will be replacing them with other aircraft types. Other operators haven't had the same problem, however.

"and these planes can fly at lower altitude and can use different arrival and departure routes. So, they are less prone than the ERJs to the legendary delays at NYC-area airports, or at least that's the theory."

That and, since they are props, they don't have to pay the pilots as much. I suspect that this has MUCH more to do with their use than any sort of concern about delays.

They are also more fuel efficient.

As for the pilots, well, CO's pilot unions have a scope clause, so they cannot get jets with more than 59 seats. While many other airlines can use the larger regionals like the CRJ-700 or Embraer 170/190, CO cannot.

But don't discount the issue with flight congestions in the NYC area. It was really at a disastrous level last summer, and anything an airline can do with increase capacity without adding more flights is a good thing. Being able to use lower flight levels and alternate patterns cannot hurt.