Originally Posted by
da42pilot
The best way to protect scope is to end labor arbitrage at the regional level.
With the COVID-19 pandemic still raging and ravaging the financials of every airline under the sun, the prospect of bringing regional flying back in-house seems to worsen day by day.
Prior to the pandemic, the prospect were not so good, either. United ALPA came out and said they didn’t think they could do it within one negotiation round. Scott Kirby said the 175s would lose their profitability by bringing them in-house.
This difference in cost structure between regionals and legacies is too great to overcome, it seems. And in light of the effects of the pandemic, I think any cost increase in the short term is inviable.
With that in mind, I think the only way to make progress in the regional question, beyond merely holding the line, is to negotiate with factors that will not have a short term financial impact.
In my opinion, one great way to accomplish this
would be to set us, pilots, up for greater negotiating power in the future by withering the cost structure advantage enjoyed by regionals. One way to accomplish this would be to negotiate a new regional model, forcing all regional jets to be flown by a single wholly-owned subsidiary.
A single, wholly-owned subsidiary for every legacy would put an end to labor arbitrage. This means the end of whipsaw. Regional pilot unions would gain strength, job stability, pay and benefits would improve, and the cost advantage of outsourcing would diminish.
To do this, every 175 (and/or other RJs) that comes off lease would be transferred to this wholly-owned subsidiary. This would happen over a period of several years.
Flow up/down could be established, union contracts could be shared or partially shared, MECs could share resources if not outright combine resources.
Remember, we didn’t get to the current situation at the regionals overnight. Outsourcing grew over many years, arguably decades. I hope reversing this won’t take as long.
But for the company, there needs to be a reason for them to do this. I’m not sure what they would require to accept such a deal, but I’m interested in what you guys would be willing to use as a bargaining chip for something like this.
What do you all think?