Originally Posted by
tom11011
The first three to go will be Great Lakes (by end of July this year), then Silver and Commutair (both by July 2016) in that order.
Republic and SkyWest will shrink at an alarming rate because they won't have crews to fly their airplanes- they cannot compete with wholly owneds as far as being able to offer any true benefit to choose them as a new hire. Not to mention there is no flow restriction to how many pilots can be hired away by the majors/lcc's. First we'll see the small airplanes depart. Next, each will have to decide on a single mainline partner as they will not be able to effectively service more than one mainline partner at a level that is acceptable. Ultimately they will simply become aircraft leasing companies. Another possibility is they become competition flying their own routes.
In about 3 years, the regional airline model will have shrunk to probably 10,000 pilots. At this point, from a cost perspective, it simply makes more sense to bring this flying back in house at mainline.
Envoy is a particular interesting enigma. Who knows what game is being played out there. We all know that from a business perspective it makes no sense to shrink Envoy to the point where their labor costs are astronomical, but that is precisely what is playing out right now with 300 senior folk not wanting to go anywhere and hover at the top of the pay scale. Does AA want to shrink them out of business or ?? Hard to know the end game with Envoy.
I have my doubts about envoy as well, but let's look at the facts a little closer:
1) In 2 years, it will be under 200 lifers at envoy now.(standard retirements and quite a few senior guys decided to flow now that AA first year pay went up)
2) Also, 2 years from now, envoy would have flowed almost 600 pilots. That means the seniority of the guy just below the lifers will be under 7 years. Basically, relative seniority will be lower than that of many other regionals, even with us lifers.
3) It's not exactly Comair's game plan: Comair had new 900s dangled in front of them that only required a differences program. The 175 requires a brand new training program. If they wanted to shut envoy down, they would have dangled PSAs 900s. Makes a lot more sense.
Personally, I don't see a shutdown for envoy. I see them merging with PDT first(Why have 2 145 carriers and 2 separate training programs?). In 2 years, when PSA is done growing, envoy will be "right sized" and taking new aircraft. Upgrade time will drop rapidly.
Envoy has expended a lot of money making pipeline programs at colleges. We have 38 such schools in a pipeline that didn't even exist 2 years ago. These students get flight, medical, and other benefits. This isn't a program to bring people here today - it is for later. Why would we spend all this money on a program for later, at a company AAG plans to shut down?
As far as total regional size: I say we are down to about 15000 pilots in a few years. Congress will intervene after a few summers of hell, provided no one dirtnaps a plane.