Originally Posted by
flyingreasemnky
Just do the math on an airline like Expressjet which currently flies ~251 EMB's (9 of which are 135's) and 106 CRJ-200's (including 11 for American). United/Delta must park most almost all of those that they fly along with almost all of Skywest's CRJ-200 fleet (158 including 12 for American) because of the contract they signed with their pilot groups. Those planes will not be replaced at 1:1 rate so they will have a glut of pilots with nothing to fly. They are the ones who could easily take on Eagle's flying.
It is true RAH can barely staff its airline as their seniority list has only grown 90 pilots from March to December despite hiring 293 pilots in that time (364 pilots were hired for all of 2013). More than likely if the options for the additional 47 175's are exercised, CHQ will be shut down to staff it. But they aren't the real threat as RAH already has a majority of 70 seaters. Anyplace with a large amount of 145's/200's will be losing a great deal of flying and will have plenty of pilots to staff new flying. Or like in the case of Skywest, they own their 200's and could easily repaint them like they already have. I have not heard of Skywest having a class with no shows yet. Heck even Mesa hasn't been having trouble staffing as of late since the announcement of the 175's.
I do agree that its going to get harder and harder to staff at the regional level as real hiring at the majors increases. However, I do not think it would be a problem for Eagle's flying to easily be replaced quickly as they were already planning on reducing it for 2014. Look how fast ACA or Colgan were replaced.
Also, Air Wisconsin needs something for after 2015 and could take on a new type like the 175 or more CRJ's like the 900 rather quickly. I bet it could even be at exchange rate of 2:1 or 3:1 and still get them to terminate their 200 contract early. Or because they are privately held, their owner could shut it down overnight and cash out. Than those pilots will need someplace to go until they can get picked up by mainline.
So to sum up, Eagle's current flying could easily be replaced in less than a year's time. My prediction is that if Eagle pilot's sign the concessionary deal, they will go down to ~60 ERJ's and than be sold off to RAH. There is more than likely a reason that an Eagle exec was just placed on RAH's board.
I didn't know that United has to park most of their 50 seaters, you might want to go review SCOPE again, then come back and lecture me how SKW inc must park most of the 50 seaters.
I still think you are missing my point, in our contract there are 2,700 pilots furlough protected, it will be interesting how this company can shut down Eagle in a short period of time and violate SCOPE while they are profitable to include Eagle. Management is not saying Eagle isn't profitable, they are making arguments that come 2015 when Delta does their adjustments they will be at a disadvantage. There is more here than just one group taking a few airplanes. I fully see AirWisky jumping in the picture soon specially as the slots in DCA and LGA are sold and also PDT as they park airframes, But there is much more than just swapping airplanes around. I have seen management violate contract provision on a daily basis so I don't know how well a furlough protection would pan out but it's something that is there and has to be accounted for.