I'm not going to quote any long posts for the sake of brevity. But what I find wrong with many of these grand predictions of doom and gloom, is most folks assume regional pilots will continue to be treated badly in the future. They are taking the current paradigm of how regional pilots are treated, and assuming nothing will change.
I believe a shift is already taking place and will continue, where regional pilots are valued much more by their mainline partners. We've already seen incremental increases, which on their own aren't much, but taken together, show a trend.
Things will only get better at the wholly owned regionals. Their mainline partners have deep pockets and will do what it takes to keep their planes in the air. Stopping the flow would temporarily keep more planes in the air, but would be a disastrous long term strategy. AAG knows this, and will do what it takes to meet their obligations.
Independent regionals may have a different path. They will have to negotiate their way forward. And although their lift is valuable, it can be more difficult to guarantee stability. It will be very interesting to see what Republic looks like at the end of their bankruptcy. It could be the first one of many, where pilots are not harmed, because they are too valuable to the future of the operation.
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