Originally Posted by
fcoolaiddrinker
In the past wholly owned regionals have attempted to scope or lock out other regionals from flying for their mainline. XJT with CAL comes to mind. Not sure if anyone currently has that? It does help in negotiations because it provides leverage. The problem over time becomes mainline will simply spin off the wholly owned regional either through a sale or IPO to get around those agreements/scope if the regional gets to costly. The ball was dropped a few decades ago when regionals were allowed to fly jets of any size IMO. One thing I wish individual Alpa mec’s would do is stop negotiating flow agreements. Way more negatives than positives and takes away leverage.
The regionals were not allowed to fly jets as you state. Jets were not given away. Decades ago most airlines had little to no scope. As managements upsized the aircraft regionals fly mainline airlines attempted to put in restrictions that you now see today. As a example Delta’s scope section through at least 1991 had one basic restriction that aircraft over 70 seats would be flown by the mainline. There were no restrictions on number of aircraft, jets, stage lengths, size or weight. That resulted in ASA flying 4 engine jets for Delta.
Delta’s scope is vastly better today than it was back then yet pilots not even born at the time persist in stating scope was sold.