Originally Posted by
Rhino Driver
BECAUSE...If you keep making life at the regionals better, what is YOUR incentive to move on??? If the regionals keep getting better contracts with better pay, benefits, bigger airplanes, you get the picture, IT BRINGS DOWN THE PROFESSION AS A WHOLE. You're willingness to fly an RJ900, as an example, from JFK to TPA, as a regional guy for regional pay, brings down the industry a couple of notches. A flight of that length and from a market such as that should only be flown by a mainline aircraft and crew.
Eventually, you become ANOTHER major carrier because WE'VE allowed you to do it for less. There's already too much capacity out there and we don't need to keep increasing it further.
It's already coming to fruition. Look at the drawdown of the regionals with the 50 seaters going away. Now we must draw the line and not allow scope to get away again. It's time we man-up and start taking it back to the mainlines!
Again, the regionals should be viewed BY ALL as a stepping stone, not a career position that one strives to attain!
I do see where you are coming from. But you have to remember that everyone's situation is different. Im 29 single and looking at an upgrade at the beginning of the year. I have 35 more years of 121 flying available to me. Take a guy who is older than me but has a wife and 2 kids to feed. He may enjoy the stability of a good sked and money more than risking being at the bottom of a major's list and taking a pay cut.
Plus, by your logic, if things become "too good" at the regionals that would mean less would leave and go to the majors...even when they are hirirng. That doesn't preclude guys with less seniority from moving on. Believe me, when those floodgates open again, people will RUN, not walk to the majors. Comfort at the regionals for the senior guys is not whats keeping the major from hiring. Guys are not going to quit the regionals to force them into a staffing problem so that the majors will say "the hell with RJ's, we need more mainline lift". I understand your theory but I think you know it just doesn't work that way. And its a flawed argument in blaming regional pilots for this.
Lastly, the company decides what kind of plane gets flown where. If they can't make money on a 737 and feel they need a CRJ-900 thats not the fault of the pilot(s) flying it. Its simply what the market demands. If the 900 wasn't available, they might pull out of the market altogether. With the economy the way it is and the cost of fuel as volatile as it is, I don't think its a forgone conclusion that if 90% of RJ's were suddenly gone tomorrow that there would be an automatic influx of 737's and A319's replacing all of that lift.