Originally Posted by
Rolf
Bill,
Not really my fight, but it sure seems better to have dalpa fly those q400's to Cedar Rapids. If SWA wants to fly c152's, they better have swapa pilots at the controls.
Rolf
Sounds great Rolf, but really, if Colgan can't do it for costs, and they are among the lowest paid pilots out there, what are the chances you could do it at mainline? You have to be competitive, or the airline won't use them.
And notice SWA doesn't want to have 717s in their fleet either. They only want 737s, because it cuts down on training costs (1 type), and costs for retiring pilots (one guy moves up, one guy gets hired). That is how they run their business. They aren't a worldwide carrier with different fleet needs. Delta has a hub and spoke system that includes small cities that a 717 wouldn't profitably go to. That's the point, we want all city pairs to be profitable, so we can add more to cover the map, and world domination(joking!). Southwest just announced 17 cities that will be dropped when they give the 717s away. They determined that their 737s couldn't make a profit going to those 17 cities.