Originally Posted by
ZapBrannigan
This. Let’s not forget that prior to about 1995 the legacies flew:
DC9-30 with 100 seats
Fokker 28 with 65 seats
Fokker 100 with 90 seats
737-200 with 100 seats
There was a time when there were no regionals, but rather a collection of commuters flying 19-37 seat turboprops that fed the hub. The idea was incremental revenue. A few people from Altoona, and a few from Beckley, and a few from Jamestown… bring them all to Pittsburgh and fill up a 737 to Orlando. It wasn’t until the ALPA foolishly allowed RJs to fall outside of scope that suddenly you have highly capable jets that could bypass hubs, or raid competitor hubs operating in big markets at high frequency. It was BS then and it’s BS now. Bring the flying back to the mainline and NEVER make that mistake again. Scope is sacrosanct.
Amen! It torques me off to no end how uneducated so many in our pilot group are about what you wrote about above.
Case in point, when discussing the A220-300 and how we went with the MAX7 instead, I’ve had several FOs comment, “Good, I didn’t want to fly an RJ anyway”. That “RJ” has the same capacity as the majority of airplanes in our fleet and even greater range, not to mention a FAR nicer cockpit.
Talk about the ultimate facepalm moment. Not surprisingly they all were on their first airline gig at SWA.