Originally Posted by
PurdueFlyer
No, Spirit in the grand scheme of things is insignificant. They have limited market share and quite honestly fly a demographic of people that the powers to be (i.e. Congress, the President, etc.) simply don't care much about.
RAH on the otherhand flies for every legacy airline and composes a good portion of the flying for 3 of them. A strike from RAH would ground a lot of flights and cause a huge uproar from ****ed off passengers (remember they don't care how much or how little pilots make, only that their tickets are dirt cheap).
That uproar would reverberate with nervous Congressman, Senators, and even the President himself. All before going into an election in November? No, release won't happen because no one will want to rock the boat. If it was a smaller carrier then maybe, but not a carrier as big as RAH.
It sucks and I wish the NMB would release RAH or any other carrier that gets to the point they have but unfortunately there are political realities here that will prevent it from happening any time soon.
They said the same thing about Comair too. Since the Comair strike major airlines, particularly Delta, have made sure to use the schedule to insulate themselves from disruptions at a regional carrier. Its understandable that Republic means a lot to the people there, but in the big picture it isn't a big deal.