There's only so much growth potential out there. Parker is pushing APA hard for scope relief. Without their pensions as leverage anymore, APA has a much greater reason to say no. They know what's going on both at their level as well as the regional level. There is a generational turnover of pilots occuring. It's just getting started now and will continue to hasten as the months and years go on. While PSA, PDT, and SKW may be able to hire and staff as necessary for the time being, those efforts will fail miserably starting next summer. WHY? HOW? Because the proverbial flood gates of hiring is going to take off next year. The retirement numbers are going to escalate for the next 10 years. Unless the mainline managements are able to procure scope relief, there is NO way that the majors will staff their overall operation. There is going to be a continued shrink overall of the regional model. As I stated in my previous post, as soon as the wholly owned regionals are UNABLE to adequately staff their hiring needs due to their own attrition rates, then the merger discussions will begin. It won't be about a whipsaw application anymore, but more about the survival of a regional model for as long as possible until the inevitable occurs; the slow fade/death of the regional model.

What AA will likely do in the future to try to maintain that regional model is after all the wholly owned regionals are merged, and even that effort begins to fail, ALL AA hiring will shift to placement at the combined Eagle-voy. That's years down the road though and will only occur once certain triggering events have occured.

During a merge, especially between same union carriers, it is generally date of hire that dictates the combined seniority list. There are of course always negotiations that happen to one extent or another but generally it's date of hire.

If you think I'm off base, add up all the retirement numbers for AA, USAir, UAL, DAL, Alaska, UPS, FDX, SWA. It's mindboggling. Unless the FAA drops a mandatory retirement age limit all together and goes solely off medical requirements, then the numbers speak for themselves. Then look at Europe's carriers retirement numbers, they're even higher than ours. Then look at Asia's growth numbers. Do some easy math. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what's coming. The upper managers know it, see it and have plans for how to handle it. First, try to get scope relief to shift more and more flying to the regional model, to buy more time. If that fails, then.... what I wrote above.

Oh God. I knew it lol

This would require a modification to PSA and PDT's CBA.

How does merging the 3 wholly owned regionals reduce pilot staffing requirements?

A lot of your argument makes ZERO sense.

First off, if AAG, DAL, or UAL wants to operate X number of airplanes, be they regional or mainline, a pilot shortage is a shortage. Sure, under your theory of wanting scope relief to solve the shortage issue, the mainline carriers will shrink, but the pilots needed to staff the theoretical increase of the regionals have to come from somewhere.

Second, if you think mergers are all about DOH, you obviously haven't read anything AT ALL in some of the merger threads in the majors section.

ICAO is 67 ???

I thought you were outta there soon?

So what? it's still a mandatory retirement age.

Scope relief is a way of shifting more flying to a lower cost model to help with corporate profits. It's a way to force the expansion of the B-scale composition. It also buys time. But that likely isn't going to work as I don't see the APA or any other mainline going along with it. In this case though, as you pointed out pilots have to come from somewhere, well, instead of having to hire at the majors, they'd place the larger faster, shinier jets at the regionals for lower operating wages. Same number of pilots required at the regional level, fewer required at the main line level. It's no different than going from DSH-8 to an E145 or E175 at PDT. They won't need more pilots as long as the airframe count is the same, just a few more for the training bubble. But again, that's likely not going to happen, the mainline guys aren't going to roll over on scope, especially with no pensions to lose.

Where does that leave us? The wholly owned if merged does one thing and one thing only, it combines the pilot groups into one manageable force at which new hires for AA can be ultimately placed with the promise of flow to AA, ie AA stops hiring off the street and goes to a 100% flow model, and AA does the hiring for all off the street hires at the combined envoy. This isn't going to happen tomorrow, or 3 years from now, but it may happen within about 5 years, and you're going to start seeing a shift in that direction. Possibly sooner than you might think. Just wait and see. My GUESS, is you'll start hearing merger rumors from higher sources around this time next year. An actual merger might happen a year later, and the language will be in place at that point for the eventual increase in flow percentages to AA.

If it doesn't happen, then the wholly owned with the most pilots, and best flow will survive, and the others will be starved out of existance.

Makes no sense to you what-so-ever does it? sleep on it, perhaps you'll have an epiphany.

I am, I have a month left. I still hope that my friends here get a good deal regardless.