Originally Posted by
alfaromeo
There is no other airline that has lost more mainline flying in the last five years than AMR. Explain to me how their scope has saved mainline jobs.
After DAL "sold their scope" in 2006, they offered recall to all remaining furloughed pilots and then hired 700 more, including you and Bucking Bar, the most vocal scope hawks on this board.
AMR just lost an arbitration about the minimum size of their active pilot group. As far as I know, AMR has not bought one single 70, 76, or 100 seat jet for their mainline due to their "tight" scope clause. They are buying 737-800's but are still retiring MD-80's faster than they are buying new jets.
You are going to have to go real slowly now and explain how DAL sold mainline jobs and AMR protected theirs.
First, DAL has sold the most scope. It is only logical for airlines like AMR and CAL to force upon the respective pilots unions a scope sale. AMR is in contract talks as is CAL. There is no management team around that is worth their salt that would just say "uncle" and buy 70+ seat jets for mainline in the middle of a heated contract negotiation period. Duh!
We can look at what AMR management is trying to do. Yes, with our scope allowance as well as UAUA's it makes sense for them to appear as it they cannot compete unless APA gave in and realized that small jets are better at Eagle. That is our external pressure to keep us outsourcing.
AMR has not cleaned their books as we have. Fact is that they have paid their bills and have to compete differently than we do.
Post the TWA acquisition, they shrunk. This deal had a ton of similar overlap. They kept STL, which is really an inefficient hub. They have as a result been dealing with a fairly inefficient hub and spoke system, this on top of the inability to reduce costs in CH11 has raised their seat mile costs.
As you suggest, a simple fix would be do out source the 70+ seat flying and not deal with the static cost issues AMR has. It would exert tremendous pressure on APA to lower their overall compensation as more of their jobs would be outsourced.
Your statement that if they gave AMR, DAL's type of scope they would be hiring is just not true. AMR was the worlds largest airline and has been shrinking with the economy. It is not do to scope that is too tight. They are trying to shrink to profitability due to a weak market, high debt burden, liquidity and maturing debt issues et al.
If one thing that DAL has proven, it is the fact that taking the seats out of the market does not mean you can raise ticket prices. It just means that you cost per seat mile goes up. AMR has a high static cost. New terminals, maturing debt, and a sour market. If APA got their contract done tomorrow, I am sure that AMR would be looking different than it does today. If they needed a 76 seat jet and they had to fly it at mainline, they would do so. APA is not stupid enough to price themselves out of a market. (First hand accounts)
Funny thing is that if you look at DAL and what our route boys are doing, it is moving to more of a AMResque model. Our growth was not due to scope. It was to improper utilization of our jets. 777's to MCO where the aircraft just could not make money for one example. We are moving jets to the routes they were intended for. We want a ton of 777's like AMR has had for 10 years. We simply needed bodies because the jet that was doing a 1.5 hr flight is now doing a 15 hr augmented flight. Because of this the aircraft utilization has gone up. It is not because of scope being where it is here. We also stopped hiring when the international expansion ended, not because we tightened scope.
You really are trying to compare apples to oranges, and all it is doing is making a smoothie.