Feederliner
A feederliner is any of a group of aircraft that is used to feed passengers into a larger network of air traffic connecting points such as airline hub and focus cities. Increasingly feeder airliners, are becoming known more generically as regional airliners.
History
Traditionally, aircraft known and noted be feederliners, were independently owned by airlines not affiliated or co-owned by "major airlines" or the parent holding companies of major carriers.
Feederliners of the past were often older aircraft, relegated from use by first tier, second tier, and occasionally first tier flag airline carrier. However with the rapid post World War II rise in air travel, assorted companies started designing new aircraft to meet the needs of smaller developing markets. Among some of these were the dehavilland Twin Otter, and Beech 99 Commuterliner, Britain Norman Islander, and Embraer Bandirante. Lavatories, galleys, and provisions for flight attendants were generally not a feature of these newly developed short range aircraft.
Due to the difficult operating environments and conditions these smaller feeder aircraft tended to be operated in, along with the varying experience levels of pilots flying at these third tier airlines, safety incidents and accidents were somewhat commonplace. In the United States with the advent of airline deregulation, a new impetus upon safety was made and this lead to the development of even more capable, safer, and somewhat larger feederliners.
As such airlines intent on attracting new business but also wanting to distance themselves from brand and marketing threats due to accidents, for a long time tolerated the higher accident rates of the independent airlines that tended to operate feederliners. Especially as long as this did not affect the larger airlines business or reputation. Additionally, as feederliners tended to operate with piston or turbine propeller driven equipment, a remoteness and distance was always maintained by the much larger jetliner equipped companies in contrast to the smaller and growing regional feederliner companies.
With the advent of codesharing upon larger airlines placing their well know airline code upon smaller less well recognized regional airline flights this gradual evolution of better equipped and safer more comfortable aircraft has continued.
This distance was also promoted and marketed by the manufactures, who realized the bigger major airlines sensitivities, and a whole slew of larger aircraft resembling the "non jet like" "puddle jumper" Cessna's soon came on to the market. These aircraft such as the Shorts 330 and dehavilland Dash 7, though completely developed for efficient operations, did not have the appeal and cache due to their high wing propjet designs. Also these small feederliners lacked the speed of the larger faster legacy carrier equipment, and as such were good fits as regional airlines developed extensive relationships with major carriers.
Today, with the advent of large feederliners such as the 46 seat ATR 42 and the later Dornier 328, Fairchild Dornier 328JET series, many feederliners are completely modern aircraft, featuring low wing turbofan powered, nearly 100 passenger seat regional jet designs which offer great passenger appeal and resemble corporate jets or much smaller "mainline airline" passenger airliners.
This rapid growth and development of feederliners, especially in the U.S. has also led to the practice of less feederliner aircraft being independently owned and operated by airlines rather that airline based consortiums and conglomerates.