A regional aircraft is commonly referred to as a small airliner with a passenger capacity of 30 to 100 passengers and carrying passengers within one country. In most cases, regional divisions of large airlines have such aircraft. These aircraft are engaged in the transportation of cargo.

The first passenger aircraft could only make short-range flights, so they could all be considered regional. Due to the emergence of long-range planes, the others began to be used to bring passengers to them. Globally, most of the smaller regional companies were bought out by international airlines, which had more capacity.

The most common planes in the postwar period: the U.S. – DC-3, the UK – Havilland Dragon. The development of this class of aircraft has always been delayed, due to this very often used outdated machines.

Since the 1950s, saving on fuel and costs of regional flights became important, so new machines, such as the Handley Page, Avro 748, F27 were created. They were successful, and there was little need for future replacements. Beginning in 1970, the development of a second class of machines began, as the previous ones had simply exhausted their potential. The new machines of the regional class were the Dash type. It was they who gave rise to the appearance and development of aircraft such as the Fokker F50, ATR 42 and Saab 340. It should be noted that the market for this class of aircraft was competitive, which caused some manufacturers to leave this niche.

Although there was an active development of jet aviation in 50s, turboprop models were the main carriers due to better fuel economy. The first true jet aircraft to carry passengers on regional flights was the BAe 146, which flew usually between airports within city limits and required a small runway.

The main problem in delaying international flights is believed to be the use of a large number of regional airliners. For example, in 2007 aircraft in the U.S. on average were delayed for an hour and two minutes. This is due to the filling of schedules with regional flights. In turn, from 2000 to 2006 more than a thousand regional planes were put on flights, which allowed to write off 385 large machines. This kind of replacement has one drawback for airports – they simply don’t have enough outlets for the planes.

The cabin of these planes is quite cramped, there are no places for hand luggage above the seats, so luggage is placed in a special compartment. Also the use of large aircraft economically unprofitable, as their maintenance is expensive and conducted in special centers, and the regional aircraft can be repaired at the airport. Regional jets are more economic per passenger than their narrow fuselage counterparts for long-haul flights.