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.
Exactly. AA had the PERFECT opportunity to incorporate all of the wholly owned Eagle pilots onto their list when they all became APA in the early 90's.
Instead, the mainline APA folks sold them out with a crummy contract, after a 90%+ (can't recall the exact number) strike vote. The Eagle folks went to ALPA not long after that, and I don't blame them.
The rest of the dominoes fell after that, and here we are.