Originally Posted by CaptainNameless

I really don't see how it's any different whatsoever, wholly owned or not.

In the wholly owned world, they are trying to force concessions via agreements AIPs, 10 year contracts, flowthrough carrots, pref. hiring, etc... In the independent contractor model at XJT and Republic they are trying to force concessions through fear mongering, a constant deafening mantra of cost-structure speak about not being "profitable." So the main difference is we have to deal with a company trying to make "profits" off of mainline money that should be in our paycheck if we were simply connected to the mainline without having independent financials. Your "profits" are hidden within the mainline carrier's financials. It's exactly the same situation, just slightly different accounting, and possibly more difficult control mechanisms for the mainlines who do not own their regionals. We have no more or less protection than you do.

The only protections any of us may have is how big our particular pilot group is (the bigger it is the more difficult to make real threats due to service disruption) and the fact that they are more or less out of new, young pilots who will accept an extended number of years in or near poverty. They're trying to mitigate that with cutting flights and rhetorically blaming a lot of it on the 1500hr/ATP regulations and hoping Congress may backtrack if enough airline service disappears. Probably not going to happen though we may see some more easing on r-ATP quals, but who knows. The 50 dead people are still dead whether regionals are out of pilots or not. Writers of that law would say that was the whole point... reduce access to passenger airline cockpits for less qualified pilots, so it appears to be working as written, give or take.