Forward to the past: more propellers in our future?

Could prop planes replace the jets that dominate Hawai'i's short-haul interisland market?
Increasingly, at least outside Hawai'i, market pressure is pushing that way.Trends appearing on short-haul Mainland routes see to be moving away from small jets and toward the use of propellor craft—mainly turboprops.The key reason: fuel.Or more precisely, the high cost of fuel.
Jets are generally more fuel efficient than props on long hauls.

They get their efficiency flying high and long. They lose it if they spent too big a proportion of their time on fuel-costly takeoffs.The regional airline Horizon in the Northwest, brought jets into its fleet, and now is reconsidering.It says it will switch to Bombardier Q-400 turboprops. (A turboprop is essentially a jet-like turbine engine that turns a propeller.A Horizon official said the turboprop is just way better on fuel economy—as much as 30 percent—on shorter hauls. With fuel near half the cost of flying today, that 30 percent looks better and better.

MSNBC, in a propeller story in April, said “The soaring cost of fuel is rapidly reshaping the landscape for regional flights at many airlines, leading to interest in a new generation of turboprop planes.”It's not just a U.S. phenomenon. In Germany, discount airline Air Berlin has opted for turboprops on shorter flights. SAS Scandinavian Air has bought a clutch of them as well.

One of the beneficiaries of the trend is Bombardier, the Canadian company that makes the Q-400.Bombardier is already an active player in the Hawaiian inter-island market.When Hawai'i interisland airlines switched from props to jets close to half a century ago, they created a travel scenario that was marginally faster, flew higher and quieter and was considerably sexier, but used a lot more fuel per seat flown.