Originally Posted by dynamic psi

There's only so much growth potential out there. Parker is pushing APA hard for scope relief. Without their pensions as leverage anymore, APA has a much greater reason to say no. They know what's going on both at their level as well as the regional level. There is a generational turnover of pilots occuring. It's just getting started now and will continue to hasten as the months and years go on. While PSA, PDT, and SKW may be able to hire and staff as necessary for the time being, those efforts will fail miserably starting next summer. WHY? HOW? Because the proverbial flood gates of hiring is going to take off next year. The retirement numbers are going to escalate for the next 10 years. Unless the mainline managements are able to procure scope relief, there is NO way that the majors will staff their overall operation. There is going to be a continued shrink overall of the regional model. As I stated in my previous post, as soon as the wholly owned regionals are UNABLE to adequately staff their hiring needs due to their own attrition rates, then the merger discussions will begin. It won't be about a whipsaw application anymore, but more about the survival of a regional model for as long as possible until the inevitable occurs; the slow fade/death of the regional model.

What AA will likely do in the future to try to maintain that regional model is after all the wholly owned regionals are merged, and even that effort begins to fail, ALL AA hiring will shift to placement at the combined Eagle-voy. That's years down the road though and will only occur once certain triggering events have occured.

During a merge, especially between same union carriers, it is generally date of hire that dictates the combined seniority list. There are of course always negotiations that happen to one extent or another but generally it's date of hire.

If you think I'm off base, add up all the retirement numbers for AA, USAir, UAL, DAL, Alaska, UPS, FDX, SWA. It's mindboggling. Unless the FAA drops a mandatory retirement age limit all together and goes solely off medical requirements, then the numbers speak for themselves. Then look at Europe's carriers retirement numbers, they're even higher than ours. Then look at Asia's growth numbers. Do some easy math. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what's coming. The upper managers know it, see it and have plans for how to handle it. First, try to get scope relief to shift more and more flying to the regional model, to buy more time. If that fails, then.... what I wrote above.