To me, this whole argument comes down to first officers who are not happy being first officers, they want to be captains. Understandable. A typical pilot has 30-40 years from the time he gets hired to the time he reaches age 65. Most major airlines have a little more than half their pilots as first officers (crew augmentation). So wouldn't you expect that about half your career should be in the right seat? If you take a 35 year average career, then you should expect about 17-18 years in the right seat, with a fixed number of pilots. So if you want to upgrade sooner than that, then you have to have growth. Most first officers now seem to think that 5 years is the standard time to upgrade. In order for that to continue, an airline would continually have to grow at pretty remarkable rates.

The real cause of change in the industry is the introduction of small jets. Back in the 1980's and 1990's, commuter flying was in prop planes. They were loud, small, uncomfortable and unpopular. Hub and spoke airlines made a lot of money on monopoly markets. For instance, Delta used to have a lock on the market in cities like Columbia, SC. Passengers would not tolerate a long flight on a prop plane to Chicago or Houston or Dallas to connect, so the market was left to Delta. They flew all mainline aircraft to Atlanta and passengers connected from there.

The yields on those monopoly routes were unreal. In fact, Delta charged so much in Columbia that the state of South Carolina funded a startup carrier, Air South, just to try to break the stranglehold that Delta had on that airport. (call sign Khaki-Blue, what's up with that).

Now, along comes the regional JET. Yep a real jet. It goes up high, goes fast, is reasonably quiet and comfortable. Now a passenger can sit on one of those to Chicago or Dallas. Now that market gets fragmented and competitive. Now you can't charge unreal rates and now 75% of your business passengers are flying on other carriers. Now you can't support mainline aircraft on that route anymore, or at least not as many.

This isn't about scope or labor contracts, this is about a disruptive technology (the RJ) that changed the industry in a radical way. How radical? How about AMR, simulated bankruptcy, US Air two bankruptcies, United bankruptcy, Delta bankruptcy, Northwest bankruptcy, Continental concessionary contracts. That seems pretty disruptive to me.

Some think the answer to this is scope. Have better scope and all those mainline jobs will come back. Nope. You can maybe get the RJ pilots to change uniforms and now are mainline pilots, but you won't get what you really want, which is hundreds of more big mainline airplanes (like 737's) to come back so you can make captain at 5 years. The only way to do that is to get Congress to pass a law to make RJ's illegal in the US. Lacking that, then you have to learn to live with these smaller jets.

The question then goes to who flies them. The first officers who are itchy for that fourth stripe probably don't want to be RJ captains because that would be a pay cut. They really don't want to be RJ first officers, for many they have already been there done that. So the question for the union becomes how much leverage do they have or are they going to expend to get these pilots to switch uniforms and now join the mainline ranks. In 2002-2007, nobody had that leverage and you had to fight defensively. The market was changing and you could not negotiate that fact away, certainly not when your company was bleeding cash.

As many have pointed out, pick the carrier with the best scope (AMR?, CAL?, or whoever) and show me what is happening to that carrier in mainline. Both AMR and CAL are losing airframes this year and they have no plans at all to buy 90-110 seat aircraft. So the premise that good scope leads to early upgrade to captain has no real world proof. It is just some "common wisdom" among disaffected first officers that has no wisdom behind it.

I support the reintroduction of 70-76 flying back to mainline. You have to remember that once you do that, you will lose ALL control over how many of those airframes that management gets. Swallow up Compass, great, but now E-175 flying is unlimited. Be careful what you wish for. I am pretty sure that E-175 captain pay is less than 767 FO pay.

What is the end game for this? Consolidation will play a big part. Delta is losing 200 50-seaters in 2008-2009. Mainline flying is pretty static in comparison. It seems that UAL and CAL are slimming down for their wedding that probably will come late this year or early next year. What happens with AMR and LCC is anyone's guess. I am thinking that LCC gets fragmented with about half surviving.

At some point, there will be three or four carriers left. Market fragmentation will decline because there are less players. Delta's strategy right now is to move to higher yields just by having a massive network that goes everywhere. Want to go to Lagos, who do you fly? That will work for a while, but eventually others will catch up. In the end, with fewer carriers and a growing market, you will probably see the minimum gauge get back up to 100 seats, but that is a long way off.

There is no magic bullet to this. Technology has changed and we aren't going back. Remember when travel agents got more money from our tickets than the pilots did? (yep that was true back in the 80's and 90's). Those days are gone too. If you want to recapture 70-76 flying at mainline, I am all behind you. You are only going to do that if you can convince your management that it is in management's interest.

If you think that you can do this by being "tough" or "radical" or "hard line" then dream on. That is a bunch of self delusion by frustrated pilots that imagine themselves as the sun drenched gun fighter going off to slay management. Go read the Railway Labor Act and then come back and give me your "radical" theories. Who are the highest paid pilots now? Southwest, right? What a bunch of radicals. SWAPA does not even have a Strike Committee. Seems their measured, thinking approach has served their pilots pretty well.

Good luck with your hard lines and LEC resolutions. How about go develop a business plan for recapturing this flying and you will be much more successful. I know that will be a lot of work, might as well be you that does it.