shfo

This is AMR they will spend a buck to save a penny. As one of the guys getting displaced I hope it fails miserably but I can see some reasons why they chose to do it.

1. The 140s and 135s are getting returned. We have known this for almost a year. The LA base is made up of only 10 140s. The only city they share with other bases is SAF and the LA flight is just a turn. If a plane needs to get into the DFW system they either ferry it through ROW or GJT and swap with an RON or just ferry it direct to ABI like they did a couple of weeks ago. If it is known way in advance they might add a revenue flight to SAF but that has only happened a couple of times.

2. The performance numbers in LA suck. What really sucks is it is not the LA base bringing down the performance. The CRJs are breaking daily with no spare aircraft or crews, the CRJ crews are taking delays because they have 9 hour overnights in LA at a hotel that can take an hour to get to and an hour to get back with no scheduled shuttle service, and the CRJ FAs like to call in sick in the outstations (where they live) or get arrested like the FA in SAN last month cancelling a kick off flight.

3. LA is very senior. The top 25% of the captains have been here 20+ years, the junior captain is a April 2000 hire. The junior line holding flight attendent has been in LA over 10 years. This is going to cause a lot of these senior people to retire reducing the overall costs of the company.

4. California has laws the company doesn't like. Ever hear of California sick?

None of us have any ill will toward the Skywest or XJT guys it's not your fault it's our managements. Also talking with the Skywest guys in the hotel van the other morning they were saying the flying will go junior since it is -200s and they know how bad our ground personnel are. They actually make Menzies look good. Expect to wait 10 minutes every flight to get parked, air hooked up, gpu hooked up etc. The only descent station we have is SMF and that is because we use Horizon people.

The company had to use a good contractor. Many of the One World carriers have high standards for their codeshares. I believe that is one reason why the American Eagle brand will be put on the Skywest/XJT flights. I do consider XJT and Skywest to be among the best regionals and would have no problem putting my family on their aircraft.

I believe the ERJ is much more economical than the CRJ. The CRJ does hold 6 more people though. The ERJ can go to 370 at MGTOW while the CRJ can barely make it to 320 and needs to do a flaps 20 and APU ECS takeoff. We do go to 370 on RNO-LA and LA-TUS we used to do it on SJC-SNA and SAN.

I think if they really wanted to do it right they would have a Q400 operator flying out of LA to FAT, SAN, SBA, and MRY and have the CRJ do RNO SMF SJC TUS, PHX and SAN-SJC-SNA-SFO again.

hemaybedid

That's a great visual... for visual sake. Hope to God it doesn't get to that point. What am I saying. Hope I'm long gone before it eventually happens.

What

There is no problem, if a CRJ-700 would break down or get stuck flying out of LA then AMR would just assign a ERJ to it, they would downgrade it. This happens in all the bases and LA is not an exemption.

BrewCity

So nobody thinks Skywest is doing this flying at a loss? These CRJs were going bye-bye anyways ... is Uncle Jerry on the hook for the payments whether they're flying or not? Isn't the US Airways flying at a loss?

squall line

Exactly. Every time I bring this up, Skywest people get on and say its not true. People have told me it was fact checked and confirm the flying is perhaps not at a loss but not at a profit either. It's a smart business move but killer on the competition. They had planes coming out of the DAL system with nowhere to go. Better to fly at a small loss, than a bigger loss with the plane parked and still having to make
payments.

SKYWCRJCA

You nor do I or anyone else on here know if this is a fact or not. The one fact is that SkyWest has been one of if not the most profitable regional airlines for the past 20 years. With said I doubt SKYW management offered to do this flying at a loss.

Speed Breaker

I have to ask because I see the other posts at different times. Can somebody explain to me the difference in attitude toward this type of change in flying than when GoJets is awarded flying? Do not think I dare side with any regional, I am just asking for a better understanding. I respect SkyWest and thier pilots more than any regional out there. Just simply trying to understand a bit better. Thanks!

DENpilot

First, this is not "new" flying for us. These airplanes are coming out of the DL system straight over to AE. We are not hiring any additional pilots, but rather will be displacing guys over to DFW to staff it.

Secondly, AE is not going to be furloughing as a result of this. Yeah, LAX closed and that sucks, but no jobs are being lost as a result. In fact, last I heard, the furloughs were being recalled.

SKYWCRJCA

Roughly 12 Skywest ground handling stations were closed and given to Eagle. Jobs were lost but because it's just a bunch of lowly rampers nobody here really cares.

wrxpilot

Actually, a lot of us cared quite a bit. We lost some damn good folks on the ground at stations like SBA, SAN, EUG, RAP, etc. It is extremely frustrating and disappointing to go into those stations now.