Originally Posted by
Sunvox
The whole point of our scope clause was to improve on what Delta had. As per our conrtact the EMB-175 is a 76 seater and this order trips the company to the 153 plane limit which restricts the future growth of hulls in the express fleet to 255 total and the CRJ-900 has already been agreed upon as a 90 seat plane that we have to fly.
You do not have the facts straight. We are not Delta, and our scope is one step superior to theirs.
One step superior to a crappy scope clause at DL isn't something to brag about.
What you are saying is either incorrect or you are misleading people reading here. The 255 limit is only to 70/76 seat airplanes. The only thing this trips is requirement for < 255 70 seaters (UAL scope had no limit on # 70 seat hulls, only block hour limits), which doesn't mean anything since the company already flew < 255 70 seaters.
Therefore, the company doesn't have to park even a single 50 seater. The company, if it chooses, can maintain all the 50 seaters it wants (these aren't included in the 255 count) as long as it maintains <121% express block hours to mainline NB hours.
They will still park 50 seaters, but that is because they are POS that no longer make money in their current state. 50 seaters were not really the issue in this contract since the company doesn't want them and investors have stated this for the past 3-5 years. However, there are agreements with the regionals that have to be fulfilled and now they will be with 76 seaters.
The "scope choke" is a joke. The only way the "scope choke" works is if they decide to buy 76 seater #154.
At the end of the day, the company will eventually have 153 76 seat aircraft, reduce the 70 seat aircraft to 102 70 seaters and reduce the 50 seat fleet to whatever they need to feed some places.
The company will never buy 76 seater #154, and thus the scope choke clauses will never kick in reducing express Block hours.
As for the Q400s, true CAL scope allowed an unlimited # of these airplanes, but people didn't book on them and they are slow and have high maintenance issues. If the company wanted more Q400s, they would have bought more of them and used them well before any merger occurred.
UAL will wait until next contract and ask for more 76 seaters in exchange for another pay raise.