Two aircraft can have fifty seats, fly the same route, and still impose two rather different economic organisations.
That is probably where the real comparison between the Embraer ERJ-145 and the Bombardier CRJ200 begins.
Both were designed in the 1990s to meet the growth of regional jet transport. Both served widely on North American and European regional networks. Both are on the used market today.
On paper, they seem to play the same role.
But buying a used aircraft is not just a matter of comparing two spec sheets.
The interesting question is rather this one:
for an operation of about fifty seats and ninety-minute sectors, what does each of these aircraft actually require you to organise?
And above all: where does the economic difference hide?
I work in parts brokerage for regional operators. So I have no particular interest in defending Embraer or Bombardier. The figures that follow come from public documentation and industry studies. They give reference points, not a universal answer.
Because on the used market, two aircraft bearing exactly the same name can have very different economic realities.
| ERJ-145LR | CRJ200LR | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats | 50 | 50 |
| Layout | 1 + 2 | 2 + 2 |
| Cabin width | 2.10 m | 2.53 m at its widest |
| Cabin height | 1.82 m | 1.85 m |
| Published range | 1,550 NM | 1,700 NM |
| Maximum cruise | Mach 0.78 | Mach 0.81 |
| Ceiling | 37,000 ft | 41,000 ft |
| MTOW | 22,000 kg | 24,041 kg |
| Engines | 2 × Rolls-Royce AE3007A1 | 2 × GE CF34-3B1 |
| Take-off at MTOW, sea level, ISA | 2,270 m | 1,918 m |
| Landing at MLW | 1,400 m | 1,479 m |
The purchase price may be the least interesting number
When you look at used-aircraft listings, the first reflex is naturally to look at the price.
It is also the most visible number.
But not necessarily the most important one.
An aircraft bought for three million dollars can end up costing more than one bought for four million if its engines are approaching a major event, if its landing gear is due for overhaul, or if its next heavy check is coming soon.
The real acquisition price is therefore something like:
purchase + pre-delivery work + engine potential consumed + airframe and gear events + cabin + ferry flight + initial parts stock.
Then operations begin.
Over five years, the logic becomes even simpler:
purchase cost + bringing up to standard + operations + financing − resale value.
Everything else is, in the end, just a way of filling in those lines correctly.
Two cabins, two commercial logics
The most visible difference for the passenger is in the layout.
The ERJ-145 uses a 1 + 2 configuration.
That means one passenger in three has a seat to themselves.
The CRJ200 uses a more conventional 2 + 2 layout.
It also has a wider cabin: about 2.53 metres at its widest point, against 2.10 metres for the ERJ.
But one should avoid a hasty conclusion.
A wider cabin does not automatically mean a much more comfortable seat. Part of that extra width simply goes to fitting four seats abreast instead of three.
And neither aircraft has a middle seat.
On a ninety-minute flight, perceived comfort will probably depend more on legroom, the seat fitted, the condition of the cabin and the service than on a few dozen centimetres of fuselage.
The difference then becomes commercial.
For a business traveller flying alone, the ERJ’s single seat can have real value.
For couples or families, the CRJ’s 2 + 2 is more conventional.
So the right question may not be:
which cabin is better?
But:
who are we carrying?
Fuel: a few dozen kilos become a lot of money
A small consumption advantage sometimes looks insignificant on a single flight.
It stops being so once that flight is multiplied by several thousand sectors.
A Jeppesen analysis published by Aircraft Commerce at the end of 2008 estimated that an ERJ-145LR carrying fifty passengers burned about 523 US gallons on a 530-nautical-mile mission.
That is about 1,590 kg of fuel for 1 h 45 of block time, taxi included.
Roughly 910 kg per block hour.
For the CRJ200, the documents I consulted do not give exactly the same mission with the same assumptions.
And that is precisely where a comparison can become misleading.
Changing the weight, the weather, the altitude, the reserves or the sector length is enough to alter the result noticeably.
The available publications nevertheless seem to give the ERJ-145 a consumption advantage on comparable missions.
But for an operator, the useful comparison is not a table published fifteen years ago.
It is the one for their route, with their load, their reserves and their weather.
Maintenance: the flight hour tells only part of the story
The older Aircraft Commerce studies also give useful reference points on maintenance.
For the ERJ-145, they gave roughly:
- 363 to 370 dollars per flight hour for airframe and components;
- about 238 dollars for the reserve on the two engines.
That is about 600 to 610 dollars per hour.
For the CRJ200:
- about 511 dollars for airframe and components;
- about 192 to 232 dollars for the engines.
That is about 703 to 743 dollars per hour.
These amounts are in 2009 dollars.
Using them as a 2026 budget would obviously be a mistake.
But their structure remains instructive.
The ERJ then had an advantage on airframe and components.
The CRJ, on the other hand, showed a slightly lower engine reserve.
It reminds us of something important: a maintenance cost is not a single number.
It is a sum of different mechanisms.
On short flights, the cycle becomes almost as important as the hour
A flight hour is an hour.
A cycle is a take-off followed by a landing.
And on a regional network, cycles add up quickly.
An aircraft flying several short sectors a day works its landing gear, brakes, tyres and some components differently from one flying long sectors.
That is why simply multiplying an hourly cost by 1.5 to get the cost of a ninety-minute flight can give a misleading picture.
Some costs follow the hours.
Others follow the cycles.
Others still follow the calendar.
And some arrive all at once.
Take a simple example.
If a one-million-dollar event has to be financed over the next 2,000 hours:
1,000,000 ÷ 2,000 = 500 dollars per hour.
That is not the cost of the overhaul.
It is the amount that would, in theory, have to be set aside every hour to pay for it.
The remaining engine potential then sometimes matters more than the aircraft’s face price.
So an aircraft can look cheap to buy and demand a great deal of cash a few months later.
A low price may simply mean that the previous owner is passing the next events on to you.
Range probably does not separate these two aircraft
On a ninety-minute sector, maximum range becomes almost secondary.
Embraer publishes about 1,550 NM for the ERJ-145LR with passengers.
Bombardier about 1,700 NM for the CRJ200LR under certain long-range cruise conditions.
The ERJ-145XR goes further still.
But for a regional mission of a few hundred nautical miles, none of these figures is probably the heart of the matter.
What matters more is the payload you can carry once you add:
- fuel;
- reserves;
- the alternate;
- temperature;
- airfield elevation;
- runway length.
In other words, theoretical range impresses in a brochure.
The weight you can actually load on a hot afternoon from a short runway interests the operator more.
The same goes for runway performance
At maximum take-off weight and at sea level, the published figures give roughly:
- 2,270 metres for the ERJ-145LR;
- 1,918 metres for the CRJ200LR.
The temptation would be to conclude at once that the CRJ has a decisive advantage.
But an airline flying a 400-mile sector does not usually take off at the weight needed to cross 1,500 miles.
Embraer, for instance, publishes about 1,380 metres for some shorter missions with passengers.
The question then becomes very concrete:
which aircraft carries fifty passengers out of your airport, with your weather, your fuel and your reserves?
The answer is no longer in a brochure.
It is in the performance calculation.
And what if the real problem were not the aircraft, but the load factor?
Suppose two aircraft whose operating costs are fairly close.
One carries 45 paying passengers.
The other only 35.
The cost per passenger immediately rises by about 29% at the same cost per flight.
That puts a lot of technical debates in their place.
You can spend hours comparing a few dozen dollars of maintenance or a few kilos of fuel.
But ten empty seats can wipe all of that out.
It is probably one of the most important questions in this comparison:
do we really need fifty seats?
If average demand is thirty passengers, the best ERJ-145 on the market and the best CRJ200 on the market can both be the wrong answer.
A smaller aircraft then becomes a possibility.
So does an ATR 42.
It will be slower.
But potentially less costly.
The question moves again:
what is the time saved worth to your passengers, compared with the extra cost to the operator?
There is no universal answer.
The aircraft you buy comes with everything around it
A used aircraft never arrives alone.
It arrives with:
- its history;
- its engines;
- its contracts;
- its events;
- its available parts;
- its workshops;
- its support network;
- its downtime.
So you have to ask questions less spectacular than “which aircraft burns the least?”, but often more important.
Are the engines covered by a per-hour contract?
Is that contract transferable?
What is the next heavy check?
How many hours and cycles remain before the major events?
Where is the workshop able to do the work?
How long will the aircraft be grounded?
And above all: what does the operator do in the meantime?
The CRJ is now supported by MHIRJ, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which took over the programme.
The ERJ remains supported by Embraer.
But the theoretical presence of a manufacturer or of worldwide support is not enough.
What matters is the reality in your region.
A part available six hours away by truck is sometimes worth more than a part available six days away by air.
So, ERJ-145 or CRJ200?
If I had to draw up a first list for sectors of about ninety minutes, the ERJ-145 would clearly deserve close study.
The published historical data gives it certain advantages in fuel burn and in airframe and component costs.
Its 1 + 2 layout can also become a commercial argument.
But that is not enough to rule out the CRJ200.
Its cabin is wider.
Its performance and range remain solid.
And above all, a CRJ200 with engines that have good potential, recent checks, a clean history and effective local support can be economically far more attractive than an ERJ bought at the wrong point in its maintenance cycle.
The reverse is just as true.
That may be the most important conclusion.
We think we are comparing two aircraft models.
In reality, when buying used, we are often comparing two histories.
Two maintenance records.
Two engine potentials.
Two check schedules.
Two support networks.
Two levels of future cash needs.
And sometimes, the gap between two examples of the same model is wider than the gap between an ERJ-145 and a CRJ200.
What the numbers can tell us is fairly clear.
What they cannot decide for us is just as clear.
What is the route?
What is the temperature?
What is the runway?
What is the average load factor?
What is a minute of journey time worth to the passengers?
How much downtime can the operator absorb?
How much capital can it tie up when the next major event arrives?
From there, the question is no longer really:
“Which is the best aircraft?”
It becomes:
“Which aircraft best fits the system we are actually able to operate?”
Sources
- Embraer, ERJ 145 fact sheet, consulted in October 2026: weights, field lengths, LR and XR ranges, speed, ceiling.
- ERJ 145 operator sheet, Amelia, 2026: cabin dimensions.
- Bombardier CRJ200 documentation as reproduced by FlyRadius, updated 2023: cabin dimensions, ER and LR ranges, weights, field lengths.
- Aircraft Commerce no. 61, December 2008 – January 2009, ERJ-135/145: Jeppesen fuel burn and maintenance analysis.
- Aircraft Commerce no. 66, October – November 2009, CRJ family: maintenance analysis.
