The CRJ700 Was Just A Better CRJ200, Really
The CRJ700 series came out of the same lineage as the smaller CRJ100 and CRJ200, but it fixed most of the annoying things about them. The wing was larger, the engines were more powerful, and the cabin was actually comfortable enough for a three-hour flight without people complaining. It still had that distinctive Bombardier look with the T-tail and rear-mounted engines, but inside it felt like a real regional aircraft instead of a mini jet. I spent a lot of time working with these during my career. One thing nobody tells you about the CRJ700 is how unforgiving the approach speed can be. You get in that final approach at 130 knots or so, and the airplane wants to fly itself all the way down. The problem is the stall warning system will start buzzing at you if you slow down too much, and recovering from a low-speed situation in a CRJ is not something you want to practice in bad weather. I had a captain who would deliberately fly a bit hot on approach, maybe 135 knots, just to keep the stall warning from being a constant irritation. Worked for him, never complained about it.
The Canadair Crj700 How A Regional Jet Revolutionized Shorthaul Aviation And Cemented Bombardiers Legacy
Bombardier needed something to fill the gap between their tiny CRJ200 and their larger business jets. The CRJ700, launched in the late 1990s and entering service around 2001, was that answer. It carried 66 to 78 passengers depending on configuration, which was a significant jump from the 50 passengers the CRJ200 could handle. Airlines that were struggling with underfilled 50-seat aircraft suddenly had an option that could move more people without switching to a full-size narrowbody. The key insight most people miss is that the CRJ700 did not win because it was dramatically better than the competition. It won because regional airlines in North America were trapped. They had contracts with major carriers to fly their routes, and they needed aircraft that could operate from shorter runways at smaller airports. The ERJ170 from Embraer was the main competitor, and honestly the choice between the two often came down to which one the lease guy had better pricing on that quarter. The CRJ700 had slightly more range and a marginally more efficient cruise, but these differences rarely mattered in day-to-day operations. What made the CRJ700 series interesting from an operational perspective was how it changed the economics for regional carriers. United Express, Delta Connection, American Eagle all ran CRJ700s and their larger derivatives, the CRJ900 and CRJ1000. The aircraft could make money on routes that used to be marginal with the CRJ200. A flight from Cleveland to Detroit or Pittsburgh to Charlotte could be profitable in a CRJ700 where it would barely break even with fewer seats.
Operational Realities
The CRJ700 uses a CF34 engine, same family as the smaller CRJ200 but bigger and more powerful. The -700 variant specifically got the CF34-8C5B, which gave it about 14,000 pounds of thrust per engine. That was enough to make the aircraft climb well and handle hot and high operations better than its predecessor. I remember flying out of Denver in summer with a full load and knowing the CRJ200 would have been a serious question mark. The CRJ700 just did it. Maintenance on these aircraft was generally straightforward but expensive. The avionics stack used standard ARINC 629 buses, which meant when something failed you had to be good with troubleshooting rather than just swapping boxes. One of my colleagues once spent six hours trying to isolate an intermittent fault that turned out to be a single corroded pin in a connector behind the EICAS panel. The CRJ700 maintenance manual does not make that easy to find. The fuel burn was roughly 800 to 900 pounds per hour in cruise, depending on weight and altitude. That put it in a reasonable position for a regional aircraft of its size. Not as efficient as what Embraer was doing with the E-Jets, but competitive enough when you factored in the purchase price and leasing terms that Bombardier could offer. Airlines in the mid-2000s were often more concerned with getting the aircraft than optimizing per-seat fuel costs at that level.
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The Range Factor
One advantage the CRJ700 had over some competitors was range. With fuel tanks in the wings and optional long-range tanks available, you could push this thing out to about 1,500 nautical miles in a reasonably loaded configuration. That meant a carrier could operate longer regional routes without worrying about fuel stops. We saw CRJ700s flying from cities in the Northeast down to Florida, sometimes running nonstop from places like Buffalo or Rochester to Miami. Those would have been serious range questions in a CRJ200. The cabin pressurization was another area where the CRJ700 improved on the older design. The ceiling pressure was set to around 6,500 feet at cruise, which is acceptable but not great. Some operators complained about passengers arriving slightly dehydrated on longer flights. There was nothing particularly wrong with the system, it was just the reality of flying a small pressurized aircraft at altitude. The CRJ700 did not solve that problem, but it was no worse than the alternatives.
Common Problems People Ignore
The CRJ700 had a few quirks that became well known over time. The landing gear was designed for short-field operations, which meant the nose gear could be sensitive to hard landings. I saw a few instances where operators were landing a bit heavy and getting premature tire wear, sometimes 200 landings before rotation when you might expect 400. The maintenance cost per flight hour went up noticeably once you hit that threshold. The air conditioning system on the CRJ700 was another area where things could get interesting. In hot weather, especially with the packs running hard on the ground, you could see temperature issues in the cabin. One operator I worked with had to modify their ground operations procedures to run the packs at reduced capacity while connected to ground power, then ramp up once airborne. It was a workaround that nobody mentioned in the basic training materials. Avionics failures on these aircraft tend to be intermittent by nature. The ARINC 629 data bus can show faults that come and go, and sometimes the problem is a loose connection rather than a failed unit. The trick is knowing when to replace a box versus when to spend time chasing wiring. I had a situation once where a display would go blank every time we crossed a certain frequency range. Turns out it was radio frequency interference coupling into a video cable, and the fix was a ferrite bead and some better routing. The parts manual did not help with that one.
Why Airlines Kept Ordering Them
The business case for the CRJ700 was solid in its era. Bombardier offered competitive pricing, good lease terms, and a type rating that maintenance crews and pilots could get qualified on relatively quickly. The crossover from CRJ200 to CRJ700 was fairly smooth, which meant airlines could expand their fleet without massive retraining costs. That mattered a lot to regional carriers operating on thin margins. Bombardier also kept the production line going with incremental improvements. The CRJ700 turned into the CRJ700 Next Generation, which had slightly better interiors and some avionics upgrades. Then came the CRJ900, which was basically a stretched CRJ700 with more seats and slightly different systems. The CRJ1000 followed, pushing the capacity even higher. This product family strategy meant that airlines could grow from 50 seats to 100 seats within the same type rating, which simplified crew scheduling and maintenance planning significantly.
The Decline Was Inevitable
By the 2010s, the CRJ700 was showing its age. The E-Jets from Embraer offered better fuel efficiency and more modern interiors. The Mitsubishi SpaceJet program, before it ran into problems, was supposed to compete in this segment. Airlines started asking tougher questions about long-term support and parts availability for the CRJ series. Bombardier eventually sold the CRJ program to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which has been struggling to maintain the type certification and support infrastructure. From an operator perspective, the CRJ700 was reliable when it was maintained properly. It could do 96 percent dispatch reliability without much effort. The problem was that maintaining it properly cost money, and regional airlines were under constant pressure to reduce those costs. Over time, the math stopped working as well. Fuel prices rose, passenger expectations increased, and the CRJ700 could not keep up with both demands simultaneously. The aircraft still flies in some places. There are operators in Canada and the United States who still run CRJ700s on regional routes. They are not the newest aircraft in the sky, but they are not obsolete either. The fundamental design is sound, and with proper maintenance the CRJ700 can continue to serve airlines that need a capable regional jet.
