Eroding pay/benefits < Stagnation or shrinkage... wake up. You want movement? I hear some retirements are coming. You want growth? Where, at Regionals or Majors? If majors are growing, the majors and regionals will have movement, if only regionals are growing, only regionals have movement and the average airline pilots long term compensation takes a nosedive. If majors are going to take back flying, the regionals are going to feel the pressure and respond by making their cost of labor even lower then it is now in order to make the divide from Major-Regional pilot pay even wider. This also puts pressure on Major airline compensation. This will make regionals more attractive to Major partners in a hope to stave off shrinking. We can either say as a pilot group, "ill take a cut while were profitable in order to be more competitive long-term with the low ball regionals" or "I'm a skilled professional, this is how much I require to do my job. If you cant afford me then I guess you'll have to find other ways to save money."

Remember the CRJ700 rates? How we were told that the 200 rate would be required to get a contract for it..and before the voting finished they announced that deal with United? History enlightens the present. Hey I can afford this car at blue book, and I'm willing to buy it. But I'm not going in there telling the seller that, I'm going to say that I'm on a tight budget and willing to walk away, then I start the offers low. Thats essentially what our dear COO is doing, and our pay rates aren't above "blue book" we are at "blue book" now. Our pay rates DO make a difference, but with that said we do NOT require concessions. To grow, maybe, but thats not a big enough carrot to me short or long term, nor for the entire SkyWest work group nor the entire airline workgroup. Management is looking out for management and the shareholders first, so they will opportunistically try to get as little out of us as possible. The sky isn't falling, don't be played by their pitch.