Originally Posted by
FirstClass
I assure you its not. Try to have some vision.
If you are American Airlines, how would you preserve your regional flow?
You could:
1.) Mandate all new hires at American come through their regional feed, no exceptions including military.
2.) When the regional feed becomes as expensive as simply operating those aircraft in house, that's what you do, fly RJ's in house.
One has a large price tag. The other does not. Option 1 creates a new rung on the career ladder.
While I see where you're going with that, the problem becomes trying to maintain an experienced cadre of instructors, check airman, and DPEs will become very difficult as time to flow drops. Why stick around with more responsibility for less pay?
Given that Delta and United are making big investments in smaller aircraft for mainline fleets, and Delta has 900 pay rates already in their mainline CBA, I agree that up-gauging is going to continue. I'd wager that sometime in the next 5 years we'll see 900s and 175s on mainline certs. But a 100% flow presents some logistical challenges that'll sink that ship pretty soon.
On second though, as AAG is unable to see further out than the next quarterly report, maybe shooting themselves in the foot is exactly what they'll do.