Bar;
Fact is that Mesa will be gone in three years tops.
We have discussed this, and Whitehurst killed DAL's case, plain and simple.
As for the other DCI agreements, they start tapering in a few years. The 50 seat flying will go away either way. The 76 seat flying is capped, and if we sell it we are just pain stupid. I do not care what the carrot is this time.
If we can not learn from how bad we got slapped in the last decade, we deserve everything we have coming. What is the saying,? "Screw me once shame on you, screw me twice shame on me."
B scale was Bob Crandall's idea at American. It started in the early 80's after deregulation.
Right. Low-cost upstarts like PeopleExpress, New York Air, Air Florida, etc. were grabbing a lot of customers using full-sized jets (RJs hardly existed then). Lorenzo was taking legacies down the same road. Crandall had a large hoard of cash and threatened to start his own low-cost subsidiary unless the APA agreed to a B-scale. It was a draconian 50% payscale cut for all new-hires, planned to last for their whole careers. In return, he promised rapid expansion, and that did happen. Other carriers won less drastic B-scales which slowly merged into full pay, so AMR's plan couldn't last long in its original form.
B-scales were like a "holy grail" for management: besides the money, there were executive egos and Wall Street perceptions in play. It became a "litmus test" of other CEO's ability to control costs, and avoid having Crandall call them wusses. Offers to provide equivalent savings via other means were rebuffed. One management official reportedly said "we won't hire without a B-scale, even if it's in the company's interest to do so."
At first, most new-hires were just happy to be off the street and on the seniority list. Quick upgrades kept up morale for a while too, but as many had predicted, the sight of others earning much more in the same seat eventually became unbearable. The B-scale had to go or internal war would have broken out, and even management feared collateral damage. They would have to cut pilot wages by some other means.....
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So, the C scale was born. Move the B scale flying off the property and try to limit it.
American, US Air, United and Delta then got a new phenomenon, the two decade upgrade.
Comair, ASA, SkyWest, Mesa, Chautauqua, Shuttle, Mesaba, ACA, Freedom, GoJets, Compass, Republic and Mid Atlantic got the "junior manned to Captain out of new hire class" phenomenon as their airline's growth exploded to compensate for mainline flying being outsourced.
The B scale was a bad idea, outsourcing is far worse.
In Atlanta I once saw a bumper sticker which read "Why didn't we just pick our own damn cotton?" Not politically correct, but a reasonable question none the less. I hope we decide to end ALPA's Apartied division and I am willing to pick my own cotton.
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