Originally Posted by
David Puddy
Watch the legacies buy up any remaining independent regionals and solidify the flow (maybe even provide mainline seniority numbers) as a way to ensure a pipeline and to also block LCC growth. This will lead to more industry consolidation. No surprise that Spirit, Frontier and Breeze are now starting to hire 1500 hour CFIs from ATP and other training groups.
Yea that has been a talking point for a while now, just logically it makes no sense. If they’re gonna move everyone to mainline and give you a seniority number, they want you on a more productive aircraft than an E145 or CRJ. There’s no way to sustain the regional model if pay has to actually go up long term. Sure their are still the lifers who never left regionals, but once the young ones bail, it’s over. If I was a time builder right now and my friends were going to NK, F9 or Breeze, I sure as hell wouldn’t be going to a regional, even for a “flow”. That’s a carrot that has rotted. Everyone can see past that, for now, as long as we don’t have another black swan event.