Yeah I am inclined to agree here, I dont see the upside in buying Compass. They already own everything, so essentially would be buying the name and the employees, which in terms of name they could care less about and in terms of employees they could easily staff on their own.

Easier to just cancel the contract and staff it with one of the regionals they already own. This would not only be the easiest, but also would allow for a hiring boom. I know lots of west coast pilots that go to our competitors simply because they dont want to work on the east of the rockies. Hell, I almost was that person. If they opened LAX for us, it would be a huge recruiting tool and a huge moral booster for Envoy.

 

Cold blooded

 

Welcome to the whipsaw. Take a look at what United and Delta did to ExpressJet. They are now about a third of the size they were 5 years ago. Other than preferential hiring at SkyWest, who owned XJT until very recently, and the ability to keep your longevity (not seniority) when you did, the pilots did not get to “go with the planes.” Or look at any of the myriad other RJ operations that were eviscerated or killed off thanks to the whims of their mainline partners. Even met a Comair veteran in my new hire class here. There are few if any guarantees at this level of the airline industry.

 

Why is that cold blooded? There will be no contract to cancel. It is expiring.

Those planes belong to AAG and SHOULD already be at Envoy NOW. It was before my time, but those were the planes that AE took concessions for and STILL didn’t get. That’s why there is a big hole in the seniority list and why Envoy is having to pay bonuses to DECs and have forced upgrades.

 

That contract isn't expiring any time soon though. And while AA could no doubt back out of it with cancellation fees, why would they? Simpler to just wait out the few years left, even if they wanted the flying with Envoy. Which I'm not at all sure they do. There is value to AA to keep them there as an object reminder if the natives start to get restless.

 

Your understanding of that situation is slightly off. We did not accept concessions to then have AAG go ahead and send the planes elsewhere. The concessions didn't get voted in until AAG sent those planes to Compass. Those 20 planes were slated to come here in exchange for concessions demanded by the new AAG management (US Air). After already taking cuts during the AMR bankruptcy just a couple of years prior and seeing the looming pilot shortage, we as a pilot group thought it was ludicrous to take concessions. So concessions were voted down multiple times. AAG and namely Scott Kirby didn't appreciate that at all. So they gave us the middle finger and sent those 20 planes to the lowest bidder (Compass), started sending our CRJs to PSA (who started the race to the bottom by voting in concessions while us and other regionals voted no), and started sending our 145s to Trans States and ExpressJet. This was the beginning of a very dark time here which resulted in nearly half of our seniority list jumping ship.

 

Actually the first airplanes start to come for renewal 01/20. They were integrated over time and if they come back to MQ they will do so over time.

 

That depends on who you talk to. If you talk to Compass pilots, the contract is in place for many years. If you talk to Envoy management, they'll tell you it is up next year. The only ones that know are those privy to the NDA info. And the reason why AAG would want to transfer those planes to Envoy is that they get to hold onto much more of the profits of the flying when it's done by a WO carrier vs a contract regional. And AAG has publicly said in numerous town halls that the plan going forward is to keep consolidating its regional feed.

 

01/20 is the date I've heard from management as well.

 

And our management puts it in late 2022. Somebody is lying, quite possibly both.

My guess - and it’s no more than that - is we get a Delta contract extension until the AA flying does go away, and then get sold lock, stock, and barrel to Republic, and Republic keeps the birds and the flying.