Not only that but the CRJ is a better airplane. Cheaper operating costs and greater reliability. Far greater QC than on the Brasilian experiment. The EMB tube is nicer, but the bins are still way smaller than most mainline bins and fill up very quickly since every bag has to be put in sideways. So you still have to gate check, which is far worse than pink tagging it.

If the company sticks to the plan and doesn't use these as transcon wanna be's and keeps them on shorter routes for the most part then it won't be an issue.

The waiting in the jetbridge for the bags is an important problem that needs to be fixed, but that is a miniscule staffing/budget issue that could be fixed fairly cheaply if the company wanted to just by hiring a few more floating rampers. And I'd still rather wait in the bridge for my pink tag than have to go to baggage claim. Any day.

Gate checking appears to happen on about 1 out of 10 Embraer 170/175 flights. Really not an issue.

I've seen it on a lot more flights than that, not including flights with tons and tons of open seats of course.

The EMB is a POS, more expensive and less reliable. Period. Its finally starting to suck a little less, but it still can't match the CRJ and is more expensive to operate.The CRJ tube is only a little more narrow, and the 70-90's with the lowered floors and raised windows aren't that bad of a ride.

Pink tagging sucks, but that's because we do it wrong to save a tiny amount of money, on paper only. If you had one extra ground agent working just those flights and all hands worked the forward bin where the pink tags were until they were all on the jetbridge the process would be much faster. Ditto for full flights with a bridge full of bags. We run that ops too lean and that's what hurts the customer experience as well as dings the onl time percentage a bit. Every minute of delay costs money, not to mention upset customers. We could increase ground ops for no additional net cost if we did it right.

But that's our fault, not the plane's.

So should we have tried to get all the guys on Mil Leave fired or should we try to take away their rights to return to work? Let's ignore all the federal laws we would be breaking and assume that we could have done that. Should we have done that?

No one can predict what individuals are going to do. They have their rights and they are well earned. If they want to come back to fly then they will, if they stay on with the military then they will. There is no way to try to conjure up what they will do.

As for the EU aspect, you are just making that up. No one ever mentioned the situation in the EU and no one tried to make some prediction one way or the other. The situation there has degraded beyond what most experts predicted back in the early summer. Now the ECB is predicting another recessionary year in the EU, down from a prediction of growth just a few months ago. Your contention that DALPA should have better predictive capabilities than the ECB is quite ridiculous.

Since the TA we have had two AE's. On a rough basis there have been 300 pilots move to higher paying positions, 90 move to lower paying positions, and 100 Captain upgrades. If backfilling is occurring with mil leave pilots returning, then that's the way it is.

People are allowed to disagree with the union. They just shouldn't tell lies to try to make their point. It seems that the standard for one group of people is perfection and the standard for another group is whatever story they can make up.

well here is one way to look at it.

while the crj-900 looks like a fun plane to fly and I wouldn't doubt if it had better economics than the Embraer.

And while it looks big and comfortable, i find as a passenger its not that nice at all. 10 out of 10 times I'll take the Embraer. I'll take the Embraer over every middle seat in the mainline fleet.

I bet a lot of other passengers feel the same. which is fine, i don't exactly want them enjoying the outsourcing experience. i hope they're reminded every time they fly that a CRJ 900 is still a CRJ tube but now with 26 more people. and if that crampt uncomfortable waiting on bags experience becomes synonymous with regional outsourcing, well then yeah.

The CRJ900 is garbage. I hate it. Uncomfortable cabin. Terrible seats. POS tray tables in 1st class. It reminds me of a tinker toy. I'd take the EMB175 every single time over that TYCO jet.

That being said, if they brought it to mainline I would fly it.

He doesn't need a trampoline. That's what his computer is for! :D

That's because it is, Mesaba had captains on it with less than 2000 total time.

of course cramped uncomfortable waiting on bags experience is something we are good at too. :D

its a different kind of cramped.

true. :D

its a very sad time here. but i ordered a new screen. DIY. oh boy.