Originally Posted by
Flycameron
I guess I'm confused as to why Skywest had a huge part in the money-loosing CPA's? Why would they be a huge part in the loosing CPA and then still want to buy Expressjet? That just seems a little odd to me. Sounds like United got what they wanted out of the deal more than anyone. Let me see if I understand, Skywest made a bid for the flying because they are $30 million dollars cheaper to run which meant expressjet had to match the bid to get the contract. Since they matched the bid it made it a loosing money CPA on the expressjet side but a money maker of the Skywest side?
Why in the world is the expressjet contract $30 million more than Skywest? That seems like a very big difference in numbers? Do Skywest pilots get paid half as much? That just seems like a very big difference and either someone's contract is out of whack or someone is getting screwed? All in all the majors are getting what they want in the end, cheaper regional flying?
"Money
losing CPA".
SkyWest bought Legacy ExpressJet to eliminate the competition. Period. All they got for their ~$26 million was the CPAs, the ground equipment, and the ground stations (now shut down). UAL still holds the leases on all of the ERJs. Their strategic plan all along has been to extract the concessions they felt was necessary to make it profitable, relative to SkyWest Airlines and ASA, or shut it down and fly the CPAs with their own metal. (SkyWest airlines and ASA).
Their biggest mistake was agreeing to merge ASA and ExpressJet instead of keeping them stand along entities. There was no way L-ExpressJet was going to give up the outliers in their contract that make it so expensive like LTD, DC retirement, OJI Bank, and 90% PPO.
All I can say further without reaching the limits of confidentiality agreements is that I hope the XJT MEC abandons the chest thumping rhetoric and thinks long and hard this week of the futures of about 2000 pilots. It's all in their hands... we are down to the wire.