Originally Posted by
Chris Knight
Scope is a big issue and it is a highly reasonable and necessary part of a contract. Perhaps there is a way around how we think of scope altogether.. How about setting a new industry precedent and integrating all aircraft and labor into one company with one contract.. Laughable perhaps, and it opens up a whole new slew of questions/issues, but it is something I have thought about for quite some time.
Certainly doable-jetBlue does and it's working for them. The current setup (Horizontal and Alaskan) is company's leveraging tool against the labor groups. A tiny air group does not need two airlines, especially when the smaller of the two are used as whipping boys. Just with Horizon, the air group is whipsawing them using Skywest.
Combining Horizon and Alaska makes a lot of sense from labor's/business perspective but it's $$$ and politics for the greedy folks up top.
Who knows....in their little minds, it could be air group's back up plan to keep Horizon's commuter/regional certificate just incase they can't survive in the major airline world, in which case they'll just become another Skywest, Republic, Mesa, etc. After all, Alaskan is quickly becoming the Mesa of the legacy/major airlines.