Originally Posted by
gonyon
They're the corporate equivalent of the first year FO!
In my mind, the future of the Q, hinges on how confident UALCAL is about breaking scope. Notice that really no other airlines want the Q. Cal got it to circumvent scope and get some contracted 70 plus seat lift. the Q probably isn't the money maker, due to reliability and mx costs, that Bombardier claims in its "turbo profits" marketing campaign. Especially the way CJC has been running it. Plus lets face it, the pax do not like it over a crj700 or emb170.
If smisek and gang are confident that they can defeat cal's scope they will let the q 400 die, if not, they will keep it around.
Mesa, GoJet, Shuttle America and Skywest all operate 50+ seat aircraft for United. What is your point?
Bottom line is, United and ALPA will go to arbitration on the 50+ seat scope. Every single one of their competitors has 50+ seat JETS operating on behalf of them. That is reason enough for the arbitrator will rule in favor of United. I don't want to believe it myself, but that is the environment we are going into.