Originally Posted by slowplay

It's not cheaper to fly them at mainline. For guidance look at the birth of Compass, a non-fee for departure airline.

Compass should be on our list

This also isn't necessarily true. Economies of scale are only a small part of the larger economic equation. There have been some large regionals with better economies of scale fall on much harder times than upstarts.

Don't fly anything at a loss, then economies of scale do kick in. Why is it cheaper to fly ASA from CHA to ATL to LAX than just to Drive to ATL and fly DAL to LAX. The flying is subsidized. Don't subsidize it and the Economies of scale become clearer. (I did not look up the costs, I'm just using this one as an example.)

Only in certain hubs. Many outstations they're doing the underwing and other services for us through Regional Elite Staffing services.

See above

You're correct, it would be a new entry level. There's a lot of change associated with that when you look at the real world economic environment.

OKAY! so print the new letterhead, BFD!

While I won't dispute that CMR's PID attempt, pilot strike, and JC Lawson's furlough letter set labor relations back a whole bunch, management got "even" in bankruptcy. Also, Delta has the exact same level of control over Compass and Mesaba, and they aren't currently shrinking as much. You might look at costs as a driving factor. Right now the junior CMR Captain has at least 9 years, while the senior Compass Captain has 3. That's the same across most of the work groups, and gives Comair a "legacy" cost structure among the regionals.

One note, Mesaba has a bunch of contractual "snap-backs" coming late this year. Note that they've decided to shrink the Saab fleet and DCI is abandoning Mesaba service to some smaller airports as their pay/rules are restored to pre-bankruptcy levels. I'm not suggesting that pilot wages alone are responsible for that reduction, but it appears to me that they contributed to that decision.

As an aside, the relationship between the ALPA represented DCI's and mainline has improved significantly over the last 18 months. I think that's good for all parties.