You have yet to offer suggestions on what route you would take in this current environment and how that monetarily compares to the regionals. That is where the disconnect is. You say what not to do while telling what you did in a completely different environment 30 years ago without going the additional step of understanding the current environment and progression opportunities.


I did not apply to any regional feeder that flew 70 seat RJ's except for ASA. Pinnacle flew a majority of 44 seat CRJs with a ratio to mainline aircraft of 50 seaters. I then saw the 44 seat RJ's then get allowed by mainline to be converted to all 50 seaters (making them more financially viable). Then I saw hub to hub flying get given up. Then, the Newco deal and allowing CRJ900's (effectively giving up the ghost on the baby 9's)... all while I'm pulling my hair out watching every scope give back make it a longer and longer shot to get hired at my dream job. NWA and DAL were the carriers that I wanted to go to above all else, but the outsourcing got so out of control that I had more or less given up the ghost and had switched focus to FDX or UPS.

Not a single part of any of that progression had anything to do with the pilots that worked at Pinnacle asking for scope givebacks, it all had to do with the gun held to the head in bullcrap process of chapter 11, ALPA saying we have to live to fight another day, and management brilliantly playing the game of outsourcing to squeeze mainline for every drop of blood they could.

It is a pipedream to think that any feeder operation is going to voluntarily give that flying back...as a result of our scope givebacks, the deadend lifers now have a much more liveable career and make up a much larger portion than they ever should have. The burden rides on us and us alone to recapture scope... I cannot emphasize that enough.