Short regional flights in the U.S. have been declining over the past decade, even as domestic air travel overall has increased. This trend is concerning amidst rising jet fuel costs.
Key points
Short regional flights are declining in the U.S.
Longer flights are becoming more popular.
Jet fuel costs are rising.
Data from OAG shows this trend.
Domestic air travel overall has boomed.
Short regional flights are the lifeblood of U.S aviation — but they were in decline even before jet fuel concerns struck. Here, a file photo shows a Delta Air Lines Connection regional jet operated by GoJet Airlines taking off from Logan International Airport in Boston.
Short regional flights are the lifeblood of U.S aviation — but they were in decline even before jet fuel concerns struck. Here, a file photo shows a Delta Air Lines Connection regional jet operated by GoJet Airlines taking off from Logan International Airport in Boston.
Charles Krupa/AP
Charles Krupa/AP
U.S. domestic air travel has boomed in recent years, except for one segment. Short flights of a few hundred miles decreased over the past decade, while longer flights became more popular, according to data gathered by the aviation analytics firm OAG for NPR.
Why are short regional flights declining in the U.S.?
Short regional flights have decreased due to a shift in passenger preference towards longer flights and other factors like rising jet fuel costs.
What impact do rising jet fuel costs have on regional flights?
Rising jet fuel costs can lead to higher ticket prices and reduced profitability for airlines, potentially resulting in fewer short regional flights.
How has U.S. domestic air travel changed in recent years?
U.S. domestic air travel has seen a boom overall, but the segment of short flights has notably declined while longer flights have gained popularity.
What data supports the decline of short regional flights?
Data from the aviation analytics firm OAG indicates a significant decrease in short flights over the past decade, contrasting with the growth in longer flights.
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Nearly 4 million short flights are scheduled for this year. But as of mid-April, the number of flights spanning less than 250 nautical miles had declined by 11% from 2016 to 2026 — the biggest drop of any route length. The decline comes as no surprise to John Grant, a senior analyst at OAG.
"That is an awful distance to be operating," he says, because short flights are more expensive for airlines than flights with a longer cruise time.
In contrast, every domestic flight category of more than 500 miles saw notable gains over the same 10-year span. The numbers depict the U.S. hub-and-spoke aviation system moving toward longer "spokes" for some routes.
Domestic jet fuel costs have roughly doubled since early February, before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. U.S. airlines spent more than $5 billion on jet fuel in March, a 56% increase from February, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Spirit Airlines blamed the soaring fuel costs when it announced it would shut down last weekend. Prices are even higher for Asia and other markets that rely more heavily on supplies transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
"Any time there is pressure like that, particularly a cost pressure, but also a resource pressure, airlines are going to concentrate flying where they can move the most passengers with the fewest pilots," says Faye Malarkey Black, CEO of the Regional Airline Association.
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Short-hop flights are the most frequent, and least efficient
Every day, thousands of U.S. airline passengers step off planes without needing to check the local time and weather, because they've traveled less than 100 miles, on flights lasting less than an hour.
For example, there are dozens of flights between Milwaukee and Chicago each week, even though they're separated by less than 80 miles and have been connected by rail lines for more than a century. But there's a key snag for travelers in the Milwaukee area who might want to take the train to O'Hare International, says Joshua Schank, an urban planning professor at UCLA who's also a partner with the consulting firm Infra Strategies.
"Remember, that rail is going between the [cities'] two downtowns, and it's not between the airports," he says. "And that's the key distinction," he adds, noting that a majority of the route's passengers are likely connecting to other destinations beyond Chicago.
For routes like that to make economic sense, they require enough people willing to pay, says Black, of the airline association.
"It's not the distance, it's the density," she says. "If you have a short flight that has a lot of density because it's between two urban centers and it's a viable option, then people will take that option."
It's one of the shorter spokes in the U.S. hub-and-spoke system that helps airlines concentrate their traffic. That's why the sub-250-mile distance remains the second most popular domestic route, even with its double-digit decline. The most popular flight category over the past 10 years isn't much longer, with the 251 to 500 nautical mile distance scheduled 2.1 million times in 2026, despite a roughly 4% dip.
But all those repeated shorter flights come at a cost.
"A lot of the fuel is used in the takeoff and landing processes," Grant says. And every landing, he notes, adds wear and tear on the planes' equipment.
To hit the sweet spot of revenue versus cost, Grant says, "airlines typically try to be in that two-hour block time" – a category that includes flights over 500 miles, such as Washington, D.C., to Atlanta.
At airports, short flights also add to the workload for understaffed air traffic control systems and congested gates. A small regional jet carrying 50 people, for instance, is just as important to a controller as a wide-body airliner. And it takes up gate space repeatedly, as it shuttles passengers back and forth to a hub airport. As Black notes, the impact of all those short flights adds up.
"Regional airlines have always been the backbone of air service to smaller communities," she says. "In the early 2000s, they were the only source of scheduled air service for roughly three-quarters of U.S. airports. Today, that figure is closer to two-thirds."
Prices for U.S. jet fuel have nearly doubled since before the Iran war began, shaking up the aviation industry. This file photo shows a worker preparing to fuel a United Express jet at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, in Grapevine, Texas.
Prices for U.S. jet fuel have nearly doubled since before the Iran war began, shaking up the aviation industry. This file photo shows a worker preparing to fuel a United Express jet at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, in Grapevine, Texas.
Tony Gutierrez/AP
Tony Gutierrez/AP
Where are we heading?
Despite their recent decline, short-hop flights are integral to the hub-and-spoke network, taking people from Colorado Springs to Denver, for instance, or from Birmingham to Atlanta.
But airlines have shifted more toward longer flights over the past decade, thanks largely to a new generation of narrow-body aircraft that are more efficient, making them an enticing option for longer-range routes. That's why the trendline favors routes such as the 501 to 750-mile category (e.g. Portland to Las Vegas, or Houston to Tampa), which grew by 11% to nearly 1.7 million scheduled flights in 2026. Flights of more than 750 and 1,000 miles each saw double-digit percentage gains, as well.
"Unfortunately for short-haul routes, the economics are not in their favor," says Ahmed Abdelghani, professor of operations management at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida. He notes that a smaller jet's higher costs must be borne by fewer passengers than a larger plane, prompting higher fares.
"Those new generation narrowbody aircraft will have much better economics than the smaller 50-seater, 70-seater aircraft," Abdelghani says, citing the newer jets' ability to spread costs over more than 160 seats, depending on how they're configured.
The newer planes align with airlines that prioritize route profitability, Abdelghani says. But he and Black both say that larger narrow-body planes aren't a good fit for every market – and as a result, smaller communities could see fewer flights and connectivity.
"The airports with the sharpest service losses tend to be small hub and non-hub airports," Black says, "and those markets are often built around shorter-distance flying." She notes that other problems, such as pilot shortages, are also affecting small markets. "As pilot availability tightened, airlines had to make decisions about where limited flying could be sustained," Black says.
As Abdelghani puts it, "The airline decides, OK, since now I'm going to fly only efficient aircraft, I'm going to sacrifice the routes that this aircraft doesn't fit."
