Originally Posted by
Rahlifer
I nominate the mainline CA that felt the need to explain to me his glorious plan to solve the RJ problem. Basically RJ captains should agree to a 50% pay cut in exchange for a preferential interview at the Major along with rj flying brought to mainline. If selected for a position at the major, I would have a choice of keeping my rj seat at the appropriate mainline pay scale or a permanent seat lock as a narrow body FO.
It’s “something I should really think about, because it’s better than anything I could hope for at my current job”. I honestly have no clue if he was just ****ing with me to get a rise outta me or if he was dead serious. I’m pretty good at tuning out all the vacuous ****heads I encounter every day, but we were both deadheading on the same flight and jockeying for position in the boarding area.����
Fortunately for you, nobody cares about his hare-brained scheme.
In the next few years, many will get hired. Regionals may shrink, this can be mitigated by regional pay raises and fast-track, sponsored pilot training programs.
But I don't think regionals are going away, or getting brought into mainline, for several good reasons.
- If you bring the planes AND the pilots, the you are open to an Mcaskill-Bond SLI. Mainline doesn't want the disruption and mainline unions don't want to have to fight for their seats against RJ lifers. Unless you can get the RJ group to voluntarily sign a staple deal with RJ CA fences (the lifers won't).
- Management knows that the pilot shortage and the good economy will most likely end some day. They would like to preserve the regional model intact, so they can benefit from it in the future. Even if regionals get expensive in the short term... the good news (for management) is that they don't need BK to claw back regional raises, just resume the whipsaw as soon as market conditions permit.
- Mainline also uses the regionals as a farm league. They can somewhat mitigate liability exposure by keeping the noobs on the smaller planes. Colgan and Comair would have cost a whole lot more if those had been narrowbodies (or widebodies
).
- Mainline unions like the regional system too... despite a few RJ SJW types most mainline pilots know that they can get paid more because RJ pilots get paid less. As long as you have appropriate scope. Hard cold fact.