Originally Posted by
Floy
Absolutely. However the idea thats it'll go away completely...I'm not so sure. The legacies wanted their C scale but they also wanted service to airports that they couldn't profitably serve that would supplement the hub feed and fill their planes. They may want to put a 220 on every RJ route now but they simply cant do it. They dont have the planes and they certainly dont have the pilots. If they did they would have taken the flying back as soon as regionals started to pay $216/hr. Why contract that out when you can take it in house? Answer: They have no choice.
I think the real question is whether or not the CURRENT regional model is sustainable rather than imploding. They have been forced to pay starting wages that compete with the legacies and Captain pay that would theoretically keep pilots from going to at least the ULCC's. How long will that last? Most regional pilots will still leave to go to the big 6 which is still an astronomical number of pilots that will leave. I think that several regionals will go away and a few big ones will survive in a smaller form. Best guesses how long the hiring continues and how long until the regionals no longer need to pay these wages and declare chap 11 and reduce those contracts back to a true C scale...
The problem IMHO is who the majors are hiring. If the majors were hiring a random mix of people from the regional seniority list it MIGHT be possible for the regionals to simply get smaller but to stay viable. But that isn’t the case. They are disproportionately hiring CAs and senior FOs. And that causes them to run afoul of the 1000 hr SIC before upgrade rule.
Regionals are bleeding people with high SIC and the ones left behind are not upgrade eligible while CAs are leaving without flying long enough to allow the FO next to them to become upgrade eligible. Right now regionals are surviving on DECs (that are becoming increasingly rare) and “lifer” CAs too close to retirement to benefit economically by a jump to the majors. It isn’t’t sustainable.
Barring a serious recession (which might happen) it’s a negative feedback loop. A death spiral.