Originally Posted by
Varsity
That's cute.
This is going to go way beyond that. Mesa is starting to fly 737's for regional pay rates. AA is farming out domestic flying to Jetblue and Alaska.
The whipsaw is going to hit mainline. It already exists in Europe and Asia. Lufthansa had/has a regional flying A340's trans Atlantic.
just for clairty, Mesa is flying 737 cargo planes for pay rates comparable to other ACMI 737 operators. While the scales are not great CA pay does get above $200/ hr. It’s not mainline NB pay but appears to be comparable to what their competitors pay.
AA is using B6 and Alaska to expand in markets where AA does not have a strong foothold and place their codes on flights on the other two airlines on routes they already operate. What is happening there is a simple codeshare and not anything close to a regional style system for flying NBs. Considering AA, B6, and Alaska all pay within about 5% of each other for 12 year CAs, I don’t think that is really detrimental to the industry like a wave of bigger jets at the regionals.