Originally Posted by
FlyZ
Here's the top reason they list for needing the flow up program:
EtD Commitment is expected to bolster Endeavor’s ability to attract career-minded pilots while positioning the airline for growth.
Delta wants to make sure Endeavor has the capability to grow. Are you guys sure it isn't worth some negotiating capital to continue shrinking the number of large RJs?
Face it, they still love the 70-76-90 seaters and will do whatever it takes to breathe life into the struggling regional model. I see this as a very creative way of helping ensure Endeavor is able to retain the staffing required to continue flying routes that Delta pilots should be flying.
Exactly correct. Management worked long and hard to set up the current outsourcing regime the way they like it, and they're not going to let it go without a fight, economics be damned. They already tried swapping out 50 seaters for a smaller number of 76 seaters (and 717s). That failed to help much with staffing but it DID give them the carrot they needed to entice the Endeavor pilots into voting in their "cost reset."
Now they just need to figure out how to staff their cost reset regional. This new flow is round 1. It won't staff Endeavor enough to grow it, but it might buy them some time. Round 2 will be lobbying Congress for further exemptions to the 1500 hour rule under some pie-in-the-sky promise of superior extra training at 9E & assurances of super-selective DL hiring. Round 3 is going to be sponsoring flight training scholarships in exchange for 5-8 yrs of indentured servitude at 9E. Round 4 is going to be asking DALPA for scope relief on next-Gen 90 seaters once they're sufficiently proven, in exchange for retiring a larger number of CRJ-700s (yet another cost reset opportunity!). It will be sold as a further restriction of DCI when it's really just yet another lifeline keeping it afloat.
When I hear guys like tsquare* say they're not willing to spend one red cent on recapturing scope, what I
really hear (and what I think management really hears) is that they're
also not willing to give up one red cent of negotiating capital that comes from preserving the status quo. If throwing management another lifeline to save their outsourcing scheme can net another 3833, I'm doubtful that tsquare et al is willing to pass over an easy 3833 to ensure outsourcing dies a natural death.
If we want to see the outsourcing scheme die, it's not going to be enough to just wait for economics to take their natural course - management will keep it on life support by any means necessary, because that's the way this generation of management was raised. If we want to see it die, we're going to have to kill it. We'll need a plan, and we'll need to act decisively while the economic factors are in our favor.
*Not picking on you tsquare, it's been a common sentiment on here recently.