Originally Posted by
Erdude32
The doubling of the wages in 5 years IMHO might be a stretch, but not too far off. I see the current regional model collapsing. The affiliated regional will be liquidated and the assets transferred to the major partner/owner. This will result in MUCH more hiring at mainline than projected just for retirements. So the average wage WILL go up. Instead of 50% of the lift nationwide being done on a "C" scale, most all of it above a CR700 type will be at mainline at mainline wages. I think the first hint of this happening will come layer this year/early next at DAL in our C2015 negotiations. We currently have CR900/Emb195 rates but they are too high. Look for those to be lowered and CR700 rates added.
PSA is an anomaly at this point. As long as Eagle & Expressjet hold the line good things will start happening fast. This is only 3/11 & I'm up to 124hrs credit for the month. Dal has waited too long to hire & our DCI carriers are canceling flights due to staffing. This is just the tip. It'll be repeated eventually at AA & UAL as well. They've all waited too long to hire AND there's no one on the pipeline to replace the right seat regional guys.
All the Regional guys have to do to keep the snowball rolling is VOTE NO!!!
The whole regional model collapsing is the ideal situation that can benefit the pilots all around. Most of us at the regionals would like to see the aircraft flown at mainline and at mainline wages. Hopefully mainline scope can be tightened even further to recapture all that flying.
As someone mentioned before, I think the regional model will likely continue to exist except on a smaller scale with slightly larger aircraft. The only reason that I can think of that the regional model might not fail is the cost savings to mainline because of their existence.