Originally Posted by
HighSpeedTaxi5
So with the increase in Hiring for 300 Pilots next year, The Jetblue/AA Codesharing and the talk of divesture of Eagle in addition to the SJU downsizing, can anyone tell me what the future forecast is for Eagle. I've been in the airline game long enough to know its mostly gray skies and turbulent. (please just the facts leave the emotions on the pillow). Just want to know how those out there in the trenches see it!
Everything at AE depends on what happens at AA, specifically what happens with APA negotiations and the scope clause.
There have been pretty strong rumors about recalls at AA happening soon. We have somewhere around 400 Eagle CAs with numbers on the AA list, so if recalls get going there would be some transfer of AE pilots to AA along with the furloughed AA pilots being recalled. Thats what I assume the AE hiring rumors of 300 pilots for 2011 stem from.
The divestiture stuff is hard to understand. I dont think anyone of us really knows what AMR will do with Eagle, if anything at all. Everyone has their theories. I personally think we will stay wholly-owned by AMR, but eventually will lose some RJ flying to outside 3rd party carriers like Skywest, CHQ, etc.
The jetblue/AA interline agreement is another odd duck. AA/AE has been walking away from the East coast and Caribbean markets for the past 5-10yrs, and jetblue coincidentally starts all our old routes the moment we drop them. Here again, the speculation is wild and everyone has their theories from AA buying JB, to AE buying JB, JB buying AE, JB buying AA, who the hell knows. Personally, I doubt JB will buy or be bought by anyone. But they might wind up a oneworld member and a domestic codeshare with AA in the future.
To sum up the trenches at Eagle, it is a lot of uncertainty. Potential to be either very good or very bad, not much in between.