Originally Posted by
Gundam
I understand majors pay a fee to regionals just as passengers pay a fee to majors. The value is determined by the cost vs the benefit provided. If the regional is responsible for building labor into their fee. If the cost of labor is higher at some point the cost to mainline must increase. Are regionals too expensive for mainline? Are they going to stop using regionals? Are you going to answer my question as to why ALPA limits aircraft type available at the regional level and likewise induces a pay deficit since the market for regional aircraft type experience is lower globally, yet they don't limit pay minimum? How is it ALPA doesn't recognize it allows the race to the bottom by scoping aircraft type but not pay??¿????????? How contracts currently work isn't an answer, that is just how things are done now, not how they must be done.
Not a single person has answered the question. If labor or any other non covered expenses go up at the regional level, mainline must do what? Does mainline use regionals out of charity or because it makes them a profit? Why scope type and not pay?
Legacy pilots negotiate the terms of scope, not ALPA as a whole. They are only looking out for legacy pilots for that specific group, not the company, and certainly not employees of other companies. The only purpose of scope is to limit how much flying is farmed out to protect and/or create legacy jobs. They can mandate the size and number of aircraft that the legacy can farm out, but they don’t negotiate the pay or QOL for the employees of another company who perform the work. After the union has determined the amount of the available flying, the various regionals fight under the table to get as much as they can. This of course forces them to keep cost, including labor, at a competitive level (the race to the bottom). Yes, increasing the cost of labor would make the current regional model more expensive and less attractive, but no legacy union will spend one dime of negotiating capital to improve things at another company. That is up to the pilots performing the contracted flying. Hopefully they can continue to raise wages across all of the regionals and hamper, if not end, the whipsaw and make higher paying jobs at legacies, cargo companies, and LCC’s available to more people.