Originally Posted by NERD (Post 1269899)

Surprised this has not been discussed:

"Surrogating" Airline Systems - Phase Two Is About To Start.

Parent Lufthansa has shut down BMIbaby, which was a brilliant attempt by the former BMI to start a low-cost "airline-within-an-airline" - a concept that's right up there with skyhooks and pixie dust as far as being viable.

Continental tried it, British tried it. Delta tried it - twice. United tried it - twice. Undaunted, other carriers across the globe are still trying it - Singapore, Qantas, etc. Cutting to the chase, in most cases, these sideshows are done for one reason - to get lower labor costs. Period. Not to mine more traffic. Not to be more "efficient." But just to cut the labor bill in the cockpit and cabin with the Trojan Horse excuse of getting more competitive.

In the US, this concept isn't going to be tried again - in this form, at least. Pushed by some of those billion-dollar global consulting firms, they've proven to total be failures. These guys are adept at providing monkey-see, monkey-do approaches to gullible airline clients all too eager to find the Holy Grail, just to discover their brilliant $500-dollar-an-hour consultants have handed them the economic equivalent of an empty beer can. In the US, the airline-within-an-airline schtick is now a scam that's run its course - one that Ray Charles could see as being dimbulb.

But don't sell these whiz-kids short. The new trend will be outsourcing, they'll declare. And we're talking about big-time outsourcing of huge sections of major airline operations. The new buzz-term is "larger regional jets" - an acronym for any flying machine under roughly 140 seats. "Regional feed" will be re-defined as anything, from anywhere, that's flown by such aircraft. The idea is to smokescreen the outsourcing of mainline aircraft, under the guise of "efficient alternative approaches" to meeting the competition.
It's the continuation of the virtual airline - where entire parts of the airline's system are outsourced to vendors, and in other areas, jointly shared with alliance partners.

The Great Unwashed - Let'em Eat Pringles. It's a lead-pipe cinch that the billion-buck consultant-non-think-tanks that push this trend have never - and we mean never - considered the concept of "customer" in these schemes. The idea of being better than the competition has taken a back seat in a race to cut as many customer-service corners as possible.

The concept of pursuing profitability on the old-fashioned idea of better, more-competitive customer service is not in play. Sure, there are the perfunctory advertisements of the new lie-flat seats, but truth be known they're being installed along with the unmentioned 28-inch-pitch slave-ship seats in the economy cabin. And. of course, there' will be the jive ads with pictures of some enormously overweight gourmet chef (who won't get within a continent of any airplane), to "oversee" the premium in-flight menus, when the reality is that a "business class" entree is still a casserole dish of mystery meat served with green beans that should have been fed to the chickens. At the same time, the great unwashed behind the curtain in economy will just have to do with a $7 can of Pringles. Credit cards only, please.

Regionals Evolve Into Surrogate Operators. The potential winners in this trend are probably three or four of today's "regional" airlines that will morph up into operators of mainline-cabin jets in the 80 - 135 seat (give or take) capacity range. But the long term fallout from an airline industry that's operationally siloed, and offers limited employee career potential, is as yet not known.
One thing is certain - the "airline-within-an-airline" concept has a successor - the virtual airline. Consumers might still book a seat on an airline brand - but it'll be a trip operated largely by vendors. Think about it - if the staff don't really work for the airline brand, and are there primarily for low wages and minimal benefits, just how much real service-orientation might there be? Ray Charles could see this one, too.

The danger is that airlines are gravitating to the fast food model - keep the staff turning over to keep costs down.

And just what else might this keep down?

Originally Posted by Superpilot92 (Post 1270393)

Originally Posted by Bucking Bar (Post 1270414)

Nerd,

I've been talking about little else but this for a decade now.

Originally Posted by TenYearsGone (Post 1270426)

Me too. It is happening before our eyes. Slowly and methodically.

TEN

Originally Posted by XtremeF150 (Post 1270515)

Quick question. Anyone have any good connections for renewing a CFI through the FAA without paying? I had a guys # over at the Charlotte FSDO but I seem to have misplaced it. I know some of these guys are good about renewing based off the fact we are airline pilots.

Originally Posted by cni187 (Post 1270214)

Most TV shows are a train wreck these days.