What never ceases to amaze me is how AMR continues to keep the APA and the Eagle ALPA guys fighting against eachother.

If the two unions ever decided to work together, AMR would be screwed royal.

For instance, everybody knows the APA is in no mood to give ANY scope exceptions to AMR for more commuter flying. This will be a huge bargaining chip for the APA this time around since AMR really wants it alot more than they are letting on.

AMR has proposed to allow subcontracting commuter flying go to aircraft up to 89,000 pounds, and 86 seat capacity in a 76 seat configuration. In other words the E170/175 series with a first class section.

If and when APA decides to trade that for something they really want, they could easily modify the AMR language in such a way as to only allow Eagle to get the larger planes. This would effectively eliminate the subcontracting to the Republics, Chataquas, Freedoms, Trans-States... and eventually put APA and Eagle ALPA as the only choice AMR has. As it is right now, they can just contract out to anybody for the cheapest feed... and whipsaw one against the other over and over.

I for one, hope that APA decides to NOT give in on scope; but if they do, to do it wisely in a way that will benefit them in the long run.... say around 2013.

The way USAir does it is to have the 170/175 as a commuter, and the 190/195 as a mainline aircraft. That seems to work well for them, and would probably work well at AMR.

The best thing would be for the two unions to start working together more. Granted, there will always be many issues they can't agree on, but sticking it to AMR is most definately a shared goal.