Originally Posted by
Imapilot2
The bad part for the regional indusry is that Delta's experiment worked. There are interview weeks where only Endeavor pilots are interviewing and getting the job. Almost all the nonmilitary pilots being hired right now are from Endeavor and almost zero from the thousands of other regional pilots with great resumes and tons of experience. Nothing against the guys getting hired but the experiment for Delta worked. Large concessions forced with a job at mainline for it. This is a bad president for the rest of the regionals.
The experiment is decades old though. For every one super senior buck fifty plus a year sleeps in his own bed every night check airman regional lifer or whatever, there are 10 or 20 making 20-70/year who got into it for the eventual payday of "Paris, First Class, Iternational" and its always been that way. Neither Delta or Pinnacle invented that. It goes way back too. Some of the hardest and most dangerous/skill required jobs in this industry pay the least and still get plenty of applicants because they are selling their time to get flight time.
All of the regionals, all of them, exist because, and only because, pilots are willing to fly for less now so that hopefully one day they can fly for a lot more. That's the market we live in, and when we sell/allow/tolerate scope concessions at the mainline level, the last thing we can do is sit back and act like the 100% inevitable result is some grand genius management brainchild.
If anything, mainline managements over the decades have managed to pee away many, many billions with the generous gift of regional outsourcing they've been given precicely because they have no idea what they are doing in the grand scheme of things. Outsourcing just to outsource is no act of genius nor does it require a 6 figure MBA, though more than a few buy them anyway.