Originally Posted by
Lost Decade
Regarding this issue, clarifying. I would assume that a single certificate with common opspecs would be required before the SOC element could be common to both operators?
Originally Posted by
rickair7777
Yes SOC means single certificate, which normally means bringing the acquired operation under the acquiring carrier's certificate.
Yes that would also need a single OPSPEC but an OPSPEC can and will have differences across fleets. Although in this case it would likely mostly consist of just bringing the SY 737's under the G4 737 rules, except any operationally unique stuff might need to be carved out (and example might be if one carrier had HUDs and the other didn't.)
I'm guessing that you're not a part of either airline in question and are here in part bc your the head honcho here on the forum. So far you have contributed a lot of insight which is very cool for both pilot groups who are facing a steep learning curve. Thank you for that.
All of that can and likely will happen before JCBA and SLI. Not sure where the union merger fits into that but it would not be a holdup for SOC
I disagree with this being "likely." The general pilot community probably doesn't see how much of an odd duck SY is. I'd venture to bet even G4 management doesn't really know what they are buying. On the one hand, AS/HA is pretty darn complex in terms of international, ETOPS, multiple types, Amazon, etc, and they are navigating this process, so it must not be too hard, right? On the other hand, G4 is something of a limited operation buying a very nuanced operation.
If a legacy flight diverts into Laughlin it makes national news. SY has low time captains flying in an out in the dark on a daily basis, no news made. ETOPS, international, Caribbean, Amazon, charters. When it comes to charters, with unreliable information operating in and out of airports that hardly ever see narrowbodies, I'll give you that one, since G4 is king of operating at small airports. AQP vs non-AQP. etc.
Why do I think it's hard for these to companies to pull off what others have in the past? SY has spent 4 decades building a nuanced operation, it changes all the time, and we still have a lot of difficulty, even having done NAT flying in the past, it's taking a long time to spin that up again, e.g. Now, try to take 40 years of evolution of FOM and CBA details and shove them under an operation that doesn't include those details, and get the FAA to sign off on it. It's possible that G4 management is staffed entirely by people who are secretly black-belts in all these areas and they will handle all this deftly. In reality, SY is not an interchangeable p/n, and there could be many bumps on the road to single certificate, especially so unless G4 wholesale adopts the SY way of operation, which seems unlikely, but this also depends on G4 management's experience and mindsets.
And the most recent SY CBA has been designed around a lot of our unique features, so that's likely to come into play. AQP is one example that alone could be a show stopper. SY CBA requires AQP, G4 doesn't. How then do you get the certificate without either first getting a JCBA, or maybe bringing G4 onto an AQP? Things with the FAA seem to go pretty slow.
Hopefully these ramblings make sense. Over time it will come to light that in spite of the small size, there is a lot going on under the hood at SY. While OPSPECS are more "plug and play" type of interchangeable parts, the rest of our manuals and procedures are not.
If somehow it were successful, imagine the nightmare of trying to running dual CBAs with all that is entailed there. Anyway, there is a lot to unpack, but feel free to bookmark this and see how I did regarding certificate integration 3 to 5 years from now. I'm learning a lot from the information you all are posting here and will try to contribute a bit more as well.