Good question. The answer:

They will all hire away the other guys regional pilots. You know regional? The 50-76 seaters who the ‘real airlines’ use to tie up gates with at their fortress hubs and run the spokes if the hub and spoke model? The ‘Big Boys’ will be driving up their own costs while progressively losing long-standing monopolies. The fact is that NO MAJOR is going to have serious difficulties filling classes until the regionals are drained dry. And the regionals are an integral part of what makes the hub and spoke model work, and contribute revenue to the ‘Big Boys’. The progressive demise of the regionals will help ULCCs more than it hurts them by opening up hub gates and providing more opportunities for point to point travel.

Immediately prior to COVID F9 and NK were expanding between 15-17% per year. How were the ‘Big Boys’ doing?





in the meantime, the ‘Big Boys’ grow 2-3 % per year: