Mergers
 

I said long ago that the regional industry would eventually consolidate through shut downs, buyouts, consolidations and mergers. We’ve seen a few shutdowns get accelerated due to Coronavirus. This industry wide slowdown provides the perfect opportunity for them to right size the mothership.... but don’t think for a second that it stops there.

my recommendation would be to spool up the mergers committees on all three WO’s and get those guys trained at National.

Do you ever make a single post on here that doesn’t start or end with “I was right about x, y, and z? Obviously an economic downturn is impossible to avoid.

I heard they nominated a mergers chair on our last MEC meeting.

Is that your way of telling MEGA that Cujo was right?

No, it was my way to tell I believe the union is getting prepared for it.
Cujos predictions have just been common sense. He might be wrong about who actually will merge though.

Will be interesting to see. Might be some savings to be had with a merger, but without some fences, there will be a huge churn of training and associated costs. Of course Envoy is already looking at a lot of training costs if they park more 145s and end up with mostly 175s.

Regionals have been reliably merging/shutdown since the mergers of the legacies.
predicting more doesn’t make you a prognosticator but instead a student of current events.

I think we've crossed that fence.

Piedvoy has always been obvious from an economic standpoint. AA doesn’t take its responsibility to shareholders very seriously though.

What was obvious to shareholders was AAG effectively used one WO regional to drive down costs at the other two.

I can see why PSA hasn't been merged. Although honestly, we're all so cheap (1/10 to 1/4 of what a "real pilot" costs), I think they only make war on us for the principle of the thing.

while they pay top dollar to the non w/o

Why wouldn't they?

The “One regional to rule them all” model obviously CAN be done. AMR did it. On the other hand, AMR was in the process of breaking up that model even before they went bankrupt. USAir came in and clearly didn’t like that model either. I don’t know all the financials behind it, and obviously times have changed, but I’d be surprised if they had that big of a change of heart and merged all three. I could see Piedvoy.

I’m a little surprised that they are still giving flying to non-WO. They are paying us all to stay home, why are they also shoveling money out the door to other contractors?

I’m perfectly happy to get paid to do nothing, and I have friends at those airlines, so I hope they don’t run pulled out from under them. That said, I’m surprised AAG lawyers haven’t found their way out of those contracts yet.

Oh, they have it. Two little words. Force majeure. October is going to kick off a Hunger Games environment. May the odds be in our favor.

When did AMR try to break up Eagle before the BK?
they threatened to sell it every four years at amendment rounds, but there was never a move to break it up.
they did start increasing the outsourcing, but not until they were already in bankruptcy getting direction from their future new masters....

The vendors are in for a tougher ride than the WO’s

PSAMont is a much more plausible scenario.

I was talking about the divestiture. We’ll never know, but the last move towards it didn’t feel like an idle threat as part of a contract negotiation. That and the increased outsourcing.

Envoy and Piedmont ground employees provide the same above and below wing services.

Envoy and Piedmont pilots operate aircraft of the same type rating.

PSA and Piedmont is the more plausible merger scenario. . .


#Peevoy

When it is all said and done, I could see Envoy no longer operating the same aircraft as Piedmont. That has more or less been the end state. No more 145s at the ‘Voy.

I have always thought it would be PSA and Piedmont to merge to keep the relative size of the eventual two WOs close.

#PSAMont

It's a lot easier to merge carriers with different fleet types. You can just move the manuals over, and that's it. All PDT pilots would have to be retrained on Envoy 145 procedures, the planes would have to be bridge checked when moving over, we use DECS, PSA and Piedmont both(correct me if I'm wrong) use FLICA, and so on.

Mergers are about saving money. Whatever costs them the least amount of money and will realize them the biggest savings is what they’ll do.

what’s flica? Is that a rap song?

signed: a piedmont pilot.

PS: we got our manuals from envoy.

Piedmonsters are good people. I'd merge with them.

Yeah? Dovetail them in based on relative seniority? Or staple them to the bottom? How would you like to see the seniority lists merged if you were in charge?

Can't staple any more.
And there's a lot of respect between PDT and Envoy unions, I'm sure they would find a good solution for the SLI.

Even though it really isn't the plausible merger any time soon.

It's a horse

so what do you have? Paper bidding with chalk and blackboard roasters? Check in with punching a time card at the ops?
we'll get along just fine if so.

we actually fax our bids in, so we’re a little ahead but will be glad to share that technology with you.

(seriously, still an option to fax bids in here at Piedmont)

I'd prefer not to merge, but if we did I would hope it was with Piedmont. I always liked that pilot group.

I agree. No issues with Piedmont group. I agree with dera though, more likely Piedmond and PSA merge than us with either.

I'm not sure if/when/how any unification of the 3 W/Os will ever happen, but some of you guys need to understand that mergers between the 3 W/Os are not all about the pilots and the aircraft.

A big function performed by the regionals is providing all the ground services at all the outstations. Envoy has people at places we don't fly to, and we've gone to many places that were handled by Envoy, PDT, heck even TSA ground crew.

When the number crunchers start calculating their cost savings from merging our companies, the decision will be based on if there are any savings to be made by putting all those personnel under one management team. Since there is very little overlap between any of the 3 companies in that regard, it would be hard to see much saving coming from merging any of us. The transition and training costs could easily overwhelm it.

What would save them a ton of money is to shut down Envoy and get rid of the unionized rampers. Give the E175's to Piedmont, get rid of all the 50 seaters.

right, sure.

You guys were flying props until early 19, struggling to get the 145 program approved by the FAA, and now you want the 175 at Piedmont? Hahaha you actually made me laugh

you got more jokes?

Even though they caved on concessions right after PSA did, and shouldn't have flow in the first place.

Are we trying to pick a PDT-ENY fight now? WTF? They are two great companies with great pilot groups, and we’ll all get to know each other much better as we chat at the unemployment offices in the lines at the soup kitchens.

look at their post history before assuming they’re at Piedmont...

Yeah, we should be making plans to share our Ramen, not picking a fight with one another.

2 trash companies with garbage management**