11 B-717 88 seats = 968

4 DC9-30 84 seats = 336

2 MD-88 ~116 seats = 232

11 MD-81/82 ~116 seats = 1276

Total seats for long haul capable aircraft = 2812 seats

Judging from other flight statistics, it would a appear that perhaps around half of these planes may fly greater than 2.5 hours. So potential user base may be around half the available seats, times average seat fill (which I think I saw was 63%), divided by two, or (2812 X .63)/2 = 885; presumably daily.

Not that the seat count matters that much other than to get an idea of potential users (since these are portable digEs). Easier approach may be to figure half the planes, times 30 per plane, plus 50% in rotation, or [(28/2) X 30] X 1.5 = 630 digEs. However, based on rather limited capacity of the planes, I suspect that the quantity is more like 500.

So there`s a better number, gone from WAG to SWAG!

SGE