Turboprops are back: Are these new JSX planes better than a jet?
Do Americans truly prefer jets over turboprops? Boutique premium air carrier JSX is ready to find out.
With a fleet of new ATR 42-600 turboprops, the Dallas-based public charter carrier is dialing it back to the late 1990s — a time before major airlines bet big on then-new regional jets, arguing they were quieter and more comfortable.
The rest is history: Regional jets became a fixture on routes to small and midsize cities, and turboprops all but disappeared from commercial service in the U.S.
But now, they're making a comeback of sorts.
Last month, JSX debuted its new ATR prop planes on flights between Southern California's Santa Monica Airport (SMO) and Las Vegas' Harry Reid International Airport (LAS). Over the next year, the air carrier will see if its unique cohort of high-end travelers will, in the name of convenience, fly on a turboprop as willingly as they fly the airline's Embraer ERJ regional jets.
"The reason we're running the experiment is to run the experiment," Alex Wilcox, CEO of JSX, said in an interview with TPG in Santa Monica on Monday. "We don't know what we don't know yet. All early indications are very positive."
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If all goes well, JSX has the option to buy up to 25 more ATR 42-600s under a tentative deal that was unveiled at the Paris Air Show last year.
If customers balk, the airline can simply return the leased planes to their owner.
So, what is it like aboard JSX's new turboprops?
The airline took select media up for a flight along the Southern California coast on Monday to give them a preview of what travelers can expect.
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'Shockingly quiet'
The ATR was, surprisingly, not that loud.
Armed with a noise-measuring app, I compared the decibels on board the ATR to a Boeing 757-300 that I flew earlier the same day.
Takeoff on the ATR was louder than on the 757, but the engines quieted shortly after departure on the climb out of SMO. Once at cruising altitude, the decibel reading I captured was comparable to the 757: It sat in the mid-90s, a level that the U.S. National Institutes of Health classifies as loud but safe for several hours of exposure.
That's roughly the same range the noise-measuring app captured while riding a Metro train through a tunnel in Washington, D.C. — but a bit louder than the 80s reading I captured at cruising altitude on a Boeing 737 MAX jet. (For comparison, the levels in a quiet office sat in the 60s.)
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"It's like shockingly quiet," Wilcox said when asked about the noise on board the ATR. He added that it is loudest in the second and third rows immediately adjacent to the propeller, and it's quietest in the last rows. I sat in 1A.
The ATR 42-600 is quieter than earlier ATR variants. The plane-maker achieved this by adding blades to the propeller and shortening said blades to reduce noise.
Chris Jones, head of the Americas for ATR, disagreed entirely with the premise that Americans prefer jets over turboprops.
"I would challenge the conventional thinking that there's a turboprop aversion because people that are in their 30s and 40s today ... have not been afforded the chance to fly on a turboprop just because of the timing when they exited the market," he said in an interview Monday. "It's kind of a legacy thinking."
Regional comfort
The cabin on the ATR 42-600 is similar to JSX's offerings on its ERJs: It has white faux-leather seats arranged in a 2-1 layout, and there's a table in place of a seat next to the solo seats.
The seats themselves were stiff, even with the extra half-inch of padding the airline added during the plane's retrofit for JSX's premium service. The ATRs were previously flown by Silver Airways, which shut down in June.
The seat pitch is generous, especially for a regional aircraft, and there are USB-A and USB-C outlets at every seat. The ATRs do not have standard power outlets.
JSX plans to remove the (small) overhead bins from its first two ATRs at a later date. (The second plane is due by the end of January.) The third and fourth planes that are due by summer will come without overhead bins.
For now, the ATRs do not offer Wi-Fi. The installation of high-speed inflight connectivity from Starlink is scheduled for February, an airline spokesperson said.
Service on board the ATR is the same as on JSX's other flights: Passengers have access to a basket of snacks and an array of complimentary beverages, both alcoholic and nonalcoholic.
Bottom line
JSX's new turboprop is a compelling option for some short JSX routes. The flight from SMO to LAS is scheduled to last one hour and 15 minutes. Its SMO to Scottsdale Airport (SCF) flight, which begins Jan. 22, will probably clock in at about one hour and 30 minutes. Since these are not long flights, significant seat recline or quiet respite is not totally necessary.
Flyers can even earn United MileagePlus miles or JetBlue TrueBlue points on JSX flights. However, Wilcox said that, so far, more customers are opting to earn with the airline's own loyalty program, Club JSX.
Then there is the convenience. Going from curb to plane at SMO takes about 60 seconds — and that doesn't include the time you save avoiding the crush of traffic on the west side of Los Angeles. That time saved is priceless.
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