Originally Posted by
rickair7777
2) Artificial economy due to low pay scales. This is what is driving the regional expansion today. Entry-level pilots used to get paid 19-seat turboprop wages to fly 19 seat turbo-props, and everybody was cool with that. Today entry-level pilots are getting paid 19 seat turboprop wages to fly 90 seat RJ's...management is taking advantage of the younger pilots who don't really know better.
The only fix for this is scope and/or a single pilot list for each brand. Regionals should be limited to 50 seat jets...the economic reality is that some 70/90 seaters would have to be grandfathered because they are already there, but the mainline guys (via alpa) need to grab hold of these 100 seaters while they still can, or we are all hosed...
The point about the pay is very true. Larger aircraft should equal more pay, that is a no-brainer. But why can't we have the larger airplanes along with more pay at a regional. I really like the idea of the single pilot list too. Are there any airlines that do this? Allow you to just move from a regional to a major when you have the seniority without changing jobs. Why do the majors even contract out the regional flying? Why don't they just operate all of their own routes? I think instead of using the regionals as a 4-5 year stepping stone it would be much more beneficial to the employees and the employer if they just raised the standards and quality at regionals and retained employees for the long-term. Turnover costs companies lots of money that could be saved and put into better pay.