Originally Posted by
Bucking Bar
Not true.
ASA had it's own code, marketing and codeshare arrangements outside of Delta. It had no limits what so ever on flights it operated under it's code (which was all of them prior to acquisition by Delta). The company was looking at 737's and DC9's. When Delta made it clear they did not want a 737/DC9 competitor in it's back yard some of ASA's management split off to continue that goal ... creating Val-U-Jet.
In rough terms, ASA retired it's ~120 seat jet due to operational problems with the type. That left 34, 50 and 66 seat aircraft. Prior to ASA's acquisition mainline MECs obtained removal of the alter ego protections in ALPA's managing documents. Management acquired ASA and Comair, had no contractual requirements to merge them and ALPA no longer recognized these wholly owned divisions of Delta as alter ego carriers. Thousands of jobs were transferred to the lower cost alter ego replacements and Delta pilots were furloughed (rinse, wash, repeat for NWA).
Disunity hurt everyone, but most of all it harmed the Delta pilots who were furloughed and suffered stagnation.It was not good for Delta's customers either.Or shareholders ... and this is after most of a 10 Billion dollar aircraft order was pumped into ASA and Comair.
It is a much more fair system is we all move up together and we all move down together. Transferring jobs to the cheapest make it difficult for us to maintain our standards.
Yes but in 2013 ASA wouldn't be flying around 110 seaters as a DCI carrier regardless of fleet reliability issues. Their hand was forced just like Comair's and ACA and others. Waxing philosophical about "we could have bought Spirit or TWA" (yes, that rhetoric was part of the PID rhetoric) is as substantive as pointing out the BAE jets that once were on property.
My core point still stands though. They weren't part of our list when they operated larger RJ's and they aren't now, even if they were to somehow get one. Which they can't anyway at this point. Some regionals may be able to employ the "seperate certificate trick" and get something larger, but seperate from risking an almost inevitable crushing response from management, that still won't get them on our list. Nor should it. Outsourcine is a mainline problem and we have to fix it by tightening scope.
Idealism aside, we are simply not a single contract or LoA away from one final scope solution. We will have to chip away at what has occured under less watchful eyes in the past. The first thing we need to get back are the 90 seaters restricted to 76 seats. Even that may take a while, due to apathy among our own if nothing else, but that is the first order of business. The rest will simply have to wait. The day of 50 seat drivers being able to take their DoH/longevity to mainline will frankly never come.