A slight change of topic, back to the feasibility of operating “regional” aircraft at mainline. Pick it apart or add to it as you will.


Slow and Alfa, you both seem to have better access to internal information so you can speak to whether or not my numbers are even in the ballpark. My goal is to find out how much is would cost for mainline Delta pilots to operate the CRJs (CR2/CR7/CR9) that Comair flew in 2008.


Since getting these numbers from public information is not the easiest task I have tried to use numbers that are on the high side. I am simply looking at crew cost for the comparison. With the pass through agreements Delta is paying actual cost for a good portion of the daily operating cost of the aircraft. In addition, Delta is covering the entire cost of operation plus providing enough extra for these Comair or any other regional carrier to make a profit.


I do not have access to Comair's net profit for 2008 but I did get their operating margins off of the BTS site for 2008:
Q1-----7.8%-----26M
Q2-----9.7%-----35M
Q3-----9.0%-----30M
Q4-----7.1%-----18M
AVG---8.4% TTL---109M


Other information / assumptions for Comair 2008 from TTL Crew Cost (AvDailing) and Block Hours (WolframAlfa):
272,000 Block Hours for the year.
81,000 Block Hours for CR7/CR9 @ $319/Hr total crew cost
190,400 Block Hours for CR2 @ $285 Hr total crew cost


These numbers result in a total crew cost of apx $80,000,00 for 2008


Delta reports a total crew cost for the M88 of $472 and for the 738 of $577 for 2008. I rounded up the M88 cost to $500 and multiplied by the total Comair BHs.


This is $136,000,000 which means that mainline could operate the CR2/CR7/CR9 fleet at the same pay rates and YOS as the MD88 for apx 56M more than Comair.


Delta currently has pay rates for the CR9 that are 64% of the 738 rate. 64% of the 738 crew cost is
$370 if we round this up to $400 and multiply by Comair's total block hours we get: $108,800,00.


This results in a difference of $28.8M for mainline to operate all three fleet types for the current CR9 mainline rates using very liberal assumptions. In fact based on the numbers I tend to think that we could operate all of Comair's CRJ type aircraft at the current CR9 mainline rates for $18M - $20M more in total pilot compensation.


Again, I don't know what Comair netted for 2008 but compared to Comair's Operating Profit for 2008 I think that mainline flying of Rjs should be doable. Certainly there is evidence that all aircraft larger than 50 seats should be at mainline.