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!
What's done it done. I seriously doubt that you're going to reverse the whole RJ at the regionals issue. I have always thought that regionals should have never gotton jets. But they did, and I doubt that will change. Now we must look to the future. We must fight for the right of self-help, even when a company enters chapter 11. Mainline can help themselves by putting seat scope in place and enforcing it. Next ALPA/Teamsters and other pilot unions need to look at themselves and stop undermining each other. This will allow the regional pilots and their unions to demand better compensation. Once this had been accomplished, then mainline can follow.
One thing I have learned over my time is one size does not fit all. Not all pilots want mainline for one reason or another. Does this mean they should not enjoy some kind of lifestyle? In the end what affects one end will affect the other. And what affects one side with also translate over the other side. Meaning this implecation reaches farther then just 121.