Originally Posted by
ClickClickBoom
This, is what I am alluding to. Pilots are egocentric and often myopic, this causes them to miss the bigger picture. UAL, DAL et al, exist for one reason, to move people from a to b for money. More market share, usually means more money. Regional, mainline is a moot question, those concepts are a labor component. Regionals came in to existence when pilots were oozing out the cracks and B,C, and D(regionals) scales were created to utilize cheap labor, today not so many pilots, so maintaining/retaining your skilled machine operators will become critical. ...All this means that the majors have issues, personnel is the largest looming on the horizon.
No, not at all. Yesterday's version of a "regional" was Delta. So was "Southern" and "Atlantic Southeast Airlines." All were carriers where the pilots flew their airline's code, exclusively.
Consider ALPA's Admin Manual language on Alter Ego Carriers in 1999.
"Whenever management forms or acquires another company for the purpose of operating an airline, it shall be deemed an alter ego and ALPA shall utilize every available mean at its disposal...to prevent its formation or to compel a merger thereof."
If one were to run today's structures through that language while considering Todd1200's SunTzu quotes for added spice a different profession shapes up pretty quickly. Alter ego airlines were as a matter of policy, to be destroyed, or assimilated.
We (as in ALPA's membership) removed, via our Executive Board, the language that would have prevented our acceptance of our current structures. We did this for a reason.
I would encourage anyone with a deep interest to read both volumes of Flying the Line. There you can read about what worked against EL Cord, what failed against Lorenzo and what a disaster over reaching is in the Crew Compliment discussion (how many three pilot 737's are out flying?).