Originally Posted by
Dunkin
AA, along with UAL and DAL, will purchase some regional airlines to prevent that from happening. The only question is who get bought and for what price, after the first one gets purchased it will be a domino effect eventually leading to just a handful of regionals that will all have a flow and career pipeline to their mainline owner. There will not be any path to get to a major that doesn't go through an RJ cockpit.
I disagree.
Purchasing a regional airline to protect your core operation isn't necessary and more akin to purchasing a car dealer to ensure the car you want next week is still there. What IS necessary is a competitive plan to protect the availability and viability of an increasingly scarce resource. Right now, Delta and United aren't suffering that much of a direct impact of AAG's flow-through to AA as not enough pilots are leaving their feeders to start at the bottom of PSA, PDT or Envoy. PSA and PDT are a trickle and Envoy claims to be overstaffed by 40%, not to mention loaded with hundreds of $120,000 year or more captains. RIGHT NOW, they can meet their goals.
IF AND WHEN direct impact to DAL and UAL becomes an issue, they are sure to react and stable contracts along with a competitive flow-through plan of their own would be enough. Once that occurs, the poaching issue becomes moot. The REAL problem is where to find hundreds of new-hire regional pilots will to work for peanuts and treated like whale **** each and every month. I'm confident most military aviators in the 28-40 range won't consider a regional as a necessary stepping stone to a legacy, unlike many 21-24 year old college kids or 2nd career warriors. Problem is, those pilots are a fraction of what will be required to run a smooth flow engine for ANY legacy.