On an internal call at United a few days ago, they were panicking because they think that Delta is buying SkyWest, and will cut the regional feed that they provide to UA. That is a real worry right now.

If you think that there is extra regional feed just laying around, you are clearly out of the loop on what is really happening.

The legacy carriers built this model where 45-50% of passengers are moved on outsourced flights with cheap contractors. Now, that is coming back to bite them in the butt. The proactive legacy airlines are attacking the slower ones by going after their regional feed. Once UA is done, the AA WO will not have enough senior staff around to keep the training department alive. At the same time, one of the legacy carriers taking over SkyWest will destroy the others.

So, no, your assessment is completely incorrect.

 

skywest and republic are gonna be MAJOR acquisition targets.

 

She (Excargodog) is always wrong, FYI. I agree with you completely. 12 LCA peers that I’m friends with at the ‘Voy (myself included) have class dates at UA.


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What part of
Did you not get? Clearly if all subcontracting regionals go away, then - duh - subcontracting to other regionals ceases to be viable. But until or unless that happens, it’s still a viable pathway. In fact, Alaska is subcontracting to Skywest right now in competition to their own regional.

 

The ONLY reason not to go to Spirit. This piece of … I’ll say, work.


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the brain trust (Parker and clan) will not pay AA group 1 rates to fly 50-76 seat RJ’s. That was a non starter. They will pay more than they currently pay at the owned regionals through consolidated cost savings; but making them current group one rates was a non starter.

if you go back to my earlier posts I also explained the reason it stopped was MX and FA’s had not also worked out an agreement. Forgive me for not reposting every facet and detail every time.

im trying to tell you the framework they already went back and forth with in 2012-2013 and were okay with. That was the only variation that was going to make it past union votes and managements approval; (still needing the other unions to do something similar)

want to go reinvent the wheel, have at at. When you’re done, it will still be round.

 

As well as keep the senior guys on those RJ’s from displacing guys off 737’s….

 

It already is becoming not viable. Flights are canceling at one WO and being shifted to another on an almost daily basis.
Many other regionals? Which ones would those be? Trans States? Compass? Tell us which ones aren’t cancelling flights already too.


It’s not about AA needing WO’s as a pilot source. It’s about AA using the job at AA to staff it’s WO’s. Since AA controls who is hired, not the APA, the management can make any flow rate they want to keep the seats filled at the regional….. for now.

while there’s a shortage, and there’s some leverage, it might be a good time to get all the flying back to mainline.

 

They are unable to hire enough at Horizon, so they are currently using Skywest to fill gaps. That won’t continue long. The regionals are contracting through attrition. The old game of outsourcing the flying to somebody cheaper only works when there is somebody cheaper to do it.

oh, and both Spirit and Frontier already have agreements with a few universities to take their graduates straight from school. As that dynamic increases where do you expect places like Skywest to get their pilots?

the only places that will get pilots are ones with a guaranteed flow to the mainline in a reasonable time period. Otherwise you’d be foolish not to take the LCC right out of college.

times have changed, the old dynamic of outsourcing to the cheapest regional doesn’t work if they can’t staff it.

nope, the new dynamic isn’t cheap contracts; it’s whomever has the pilots to do the flying. Pilot Staffing is the new currency.

 

bingo, said that six years ago that mergers, consolidations and acquisitions would be for staffing. Covid delayed it two years.

no skin in this game anymore; I left the AAG family; but if I can help save time by reminding a few folks that there was an outline that Team Parker accepted, it might help as a good starting point.

get with Tim Hamel, if he’s still there, he’ll probably remember the outline and talking points that passed muster back then. You had a lot fewer BOD members to convince back then though.