Several such craft exist at the bigger end of the regional jet market. There's the Sukhoi Superjet 100, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Superjet_100 or the Embraer 190/195. These are both post-2000 airliners that have sold or been ordered in the hundreds (in the case of the Embraer E-jet family, total orders exceed a thousand), which carry around 100-110 passengers in 2+2 or 2+3 seating, and which are designed for much the same market niche.
The reason the 717 is popular is because the airframes are fully depreciated; the cost more to run than the newer jets, but are much cheaper to buy or lease. (Source: a guy I know who used to work in Finance for Allegiant, back before they began to diversity from MD-80 family planes.)
This is in addition to established offerings from Embraer and Bombardier (and some Airbus and Boeing at the very high end of the regional jet market with the A-318 and the smaller 737s). Each of these is more or less a clean-sheet design. The CSeries is already in flight testing.
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Several such craft exist at the bigger end of the regional jet market. There's the Sukhoi Superjet 100, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Superjet_100 or the Embraer 190/195. These are both post-2000 airliners that have sold or been ordered in the hundreds (in the case of the Embraer E-jet family, total orders exceed a thousand), which carry around 100-110 passengers in 2+2 or 2+3 seating, and which are designed for much the same market niche.
The reason the 717 is popular is because the airframes are fully depreciated; the cost more to run than the newer jets, but are much cheaper to buy or lease. (Source: a guy I know who used to work in Finance for Allegiant, back before they began to diversity from MD-80 family planes.)
In fact, there is about to be a veritable boom in that particular market. In addition to the Sukhoi Superjet 100, you have:
* The Bombardier CSeries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_CSeries)
* The Comac ARJ21 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comac_ARJ21)
* The Irkut MC-21 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irkut_MC-21)
* The Mitsubishi MRJ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Regional_Jet)
This is in addition to established offerings from Embraer and Bombardier (and some Airbus and Boeing at the very high end of the regional jet market with the A-318 and the smaller 737s). Each of these is more or less a clean-sheet design. The CSeries is already in flight testing.
Dornier was also trying to enter this market with a new design in the late 90s/early 2000s with the 728 series (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Dornier_728_family), but they ran out of money.