Originally Posted by
rickair7777
They should close the loophole. It's not scheduled because the company that sells the tickets isn't the company that operates the flights? GMAFB, you could say the same about all the regionals. But give them a grace period to get their house in order, on the off chance the model can survive under 121 rules. I don't really blame them for the loophole, that's on the regulators.
Actually, it's not really the same. When I was at ALPA National we researched putting together a test case for petitioning to have a regional airline removed from the RLA
The argument was to be that it was not an airline at all. It was a staffing and training company. They flew planes owned by the mainline contractor. They owned no gates, no ground equipment, no planes; they sold no tickets and accepted no charters. They solely existed to staff and use another companies equipment.
This was actually seriously being looked at. It fits exactly with what you just pointed out about JSX.
Then we hit one single issue. The staffing & training company held a piece of paper from the federal government that contradicted all of that common sense logic. The company held a part 121 Air Carrier Certificate, making it an airline, not a staffing & taining company. So that regional was an airline that owned nothing, sold nothing, and just staffed & trained people.
I'm sure the argument will be the travel-vacation company decides when and where to fly, and just charters JSX. I don't really buy that "hands off" theory. It looks like the FAA didn't either.