Originally Posted by
avi8tor220
It's always nice to come to this thread to get good info from the guys that have been through this. Why the sell off in 2010, only to wholly own another regional now? I understand this whole bankruptcy of Pinnacle was a cost reset. But couldn't the reset occur without becoming wholly owned again by Delta? It's pocket change in Delta's eye to invest in Pinnacle. But why Pinnacle? Why now? Maybe I'm reading too much into this like others have said.
It is not unlike the oil refinery ... an experiment in vertical integration and labor.
SkyWest is not really a player in the race to the bottom. Pinnacle's somewhat ballistic trajectory came from underbidding the flying, losing their butts, then entering bankruptcy. While GoJets participated, SkyWest mostly sat on the sidelines and worked their play book to diversify their revenue base.
Also, Northwest has a very close relationship with Pinnacle. Prior to the bankruptcy Delta was already doing side deals to compensate Pinnacle pilots contractual gains. I don't understand that relationship, but clearly it exists (I can find the news articles if you're interested).
From what I am hearing Pinnacle will be Delta without Delta pilots. This experiment has been played before at ASA, but Delta has more capability now than it had then. There are a lot of RJ centric resources left over from Comair (World's largest CF-34 engine shop outside of GE if I am not mistaken) and the same network capability that facilitated our merger enables virtualization of an airline like Pinnacle easy.