Originally Posted by Excargodog (Post 2830294)

The same holding company, but the parent holding company does exert their influence. But there are different contracts with different terms that are at least to some degree enforceable. But there’s more to it than that.

Regionals per se are sort of labile. I often find myself reminding people that until ten years ago, Compass was a Delta wholly owned.

The plain fact if the matter is that all regionals are expendable. The list of regional airlines (or even major airlines) that have at least briefly been THE PLACE TO BE and then subsequently gone bankrupt is a long one.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List..._United_States

And the number of people who - at least at the regional level - have lost seniority and had to start over again somewhere else is legion. At the major airline level it’s usually a merger and the two pilot unions get to spend a few contentious years dealing with the seniority list integration. The bad feelings between the Virgin America and the Alaska pilots still lingers.

There basically are two philosophies and I personally subscribe to the minority view.

The majority view is to go somewhere you believe you would be willing to spend ten years if you got stuck there. That’s generally considered to be Skywest, Republic, or one of the wholly owneds.

Personally, I believe things are too unpredictable for that. Any of these can go bankrupt just as easily as anyone else. A REAL bankruptcy, or just a strategic one like Republic did to be able to get out if their fifty seater flying. Corporations have all learned how to play bankruptcy courts to their own advantage and - for airlines - they can manipulate the RLA to an even greater degree. And they’ll furlough you in a heartbeat if it serves their purpose.

My philosophy is to do whatever you can to avoid being stuck for ten years in a regional. That means chasing 121 flying hours in general and TPIC in particular, so my plan is to go where there is lots of flying, relatively short reserve times, and relatively quick upgrade. That detracts from quality of life at a regional generally, but optimizes the process of getting through quickly, which with the peak of the major airline hiring wave hitting in three or four years, I would really like to do.

YMMV, however. Pay your penny and take your pick.

What would I do? Go with Compass, ride that horse until it’s obvious there are better short term opportunities and then jump to them. If a year from now you wind up having been at your base of choice for a year, and Compass loses flying, take your type rating and your 750 hours and go be a near dec somewhere else, whatever it takes.

Compass is a better regional than most, at least in the short term, but a good regional isn’t the long term goal. Don’t be brand loyal out of some misplaced ideal of loyalty to the regional. Everyone of them will drop you like the proverbial hot rock if it suits their purpose. Once you’ve fulfilled your legal obligation to them, do whatever’s best for you.

Originally Posted by ESQ702 (Post 2830524)

I’m admittedly too lazy to look into this, so I’ll ask here: what’s a realistic timeframe to know whether the sky will actual fall or not at Compass with regards to Delta’s contract?

Originally Posted by Excargodog (Post 2830546)

You never know until you know. A year ago it was rumored that Republic was going to buy Compass and the rest of TSA.

https://theaircurrent.com/airlines/r...-trans-states/

That went away.

https://theaircurrent.com/airlines/t...is-near-death/

Six months ago everybody was saying that Gojet was road kill.

https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/g...flying-10.html

Now they’ve got new flying coming, they are hiring like crazy, and giving big bonuses.

https://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/...gojet_airlines

The regional airline industry is like Brownian motion. It’s inherently unpredictable.

Realistically, it probably makes more sense for Delta to just renew. The bases and pilots are already in place, by the time you figure the costs of winding down the Delta flying at Compass and winding it up somewhere else, it probably makes economic sense to just renew, at least until Delta is ready to reclaim the flying at mainline with A220s, which is likely a couple years away.

But part of the game is to use some of the regionals to whipsaw the others. That is, to squeeze low prices from regional A by threatening to give (or actually giving) their existing flying to someone else.

It’s sort of a corporate game of chicken which is why the concept of a CAREER at a regional is so distasteful. You don’t really have stability until you are at a major and even then it can get...interesting.

Generally speaking, the two regionals considered to be the most “stable” are Skywest:

https://www.macroaxis.com/invest/rat...-Of-Bankruptcy

And Republic:

https://www.macroaxis.com/invest/rat...-Of-Bankruptcy

But like I said, the whole industry is Brownian Motion - basically smoke.

Originally Posted by Fit4Doody (Post 2830548)

Don’t leave out QX! 2 years ago it was doom and gloom and shut down threats looming with a whopping 400+ canceled flights due to staffing. Not anymore.

Originally Posted by ESQ702 (Post 2830556)

I don’t have any argument with what you and excargodog are saying (and thanks for the replies), but there has to be a general timeframe involved re: Delta because their contract will expire at some point without renewal, right?

Originally Posted by Excargodog (Post 2830559)

Yes, but it’s a private contract and the terms aren’t publicly known. It expires in 2020 but exactly WHEN in 2020 is a little iffy. Nobody is going to abruptly take 36 aircraft out of circulation. Well, OK, if they are MAX’s maybe, but the pax don’t go away and the 36 aircraft are too big a capital investment for Delta to want to stand them all down prior to having the resources to utilize them, and even if Skywest or Mesa had a spare 350 pilots just sitting around on reserve somewhere, all the aircraft need conformity checks before they can be transferred to another certificate.

http://atis.casa.go.kr/ACS/document4...ction_RevA.pdf

So if they decided to do conformity checks on two aircraft a week they could transfer them out in only 18 weeks. Exactly how the drawdown goes - if at all - depends on the exact dates (which we don’t know) and how quickly they vacancy get the conformity checks done and how quickly Skywest (or whoever) can spin up 350 pilots and the needed maintenance and other personnel. That could conceivably be another year... or not happen at all.

Assuming, that is, the whole take them away thing isn’t some gigantic bluff to make HK low ball his renewal bid or Delta doesn’t decide to buy us back (Delta sold us to T-SHIRT originally) and combine us with Endeavour or sell us to Skywest or Republic or Mesa.

Like I said, it’s all smoke. You might want a solid answer - hell, everybody working for every regional would like solid answers, but they are often in pretty short supply.

Originally Posted by thrustisamust (Post 2830654)

Seems everyone's well aware of the limbo situation with the Delta contract. How about the AA flying? Is this contract set to be up in the end of 2019?

Originally Posted by ESQ702 (Post 2830556)

I don’t have any argument with what you and excargodog are saying (and thanks for the replies), but there has to be a general timeframe involved re: Delta because their contract will expire at some point without renewal, right?