rickair7777

He's overestimating how much mainline pilots care about "saving the regional pilots".

Rather than holding your breath on that, better to finish your degree and get your apps out.

GogglesPisano

Repeated for emphasis.

Gundam: Major airline MEC’s do not limit what types of aircraft regional airlines operate. Their scope clauses simply stipulate that any aircraft larger than a certain size that generates revenue for their airline be flown by their MEC’s pilots.

A regional can operate 777’s as far as AA/UAL/DL MEC’s care — just not for AA/UAL/DL.

(One exception was Delta’s scope clause in the 2000’s, which prohibited any regional affiliate from operating any large aircraft for Delta or any other operator. But I think that stipulation no longer exists.)

Big E 757

I’m pretty sure it’s still there. If an affiliate operates an aircraft that doesn’t conform with our scope clause, they can’t do any flying for us.

sailingfun

ALPA is a association not a union. National unions that could negotiate for multiple airlines are prohibited under the RLA. Individual airlines can unionize and come under the ALPA umbrella of assistance but they can’t legally negotiate for another airline. Scope clauses don’t dictate what aircraft an airline can fly. Any airline is free to fly anything they want. Scope clauses dictate what a unionized airline is allowed to outsource. Without a scope section a contract has zero value.

beverage

^This.
There is a reason it is Section 1.

GogglesPisano

Ok. Point taken. But the regional affiliate can find another mainline to partner with.

fcoolaiddrinker

In the past wholly owned regionals have attempted to scope or lock out other regionals from flying for their mainline. XJT with CAL comes to mind. Not sure if anyone currently has that? It does help in negotiations because it provides leverage. The problem over time becomes mainline will simply spin off the wholly owned regional either through a sale or IPO to get around those agreements/scope if the regional gets to costly. The ball was dropped a few decades ago when regionals were allowed to fly jets of any size IMO. One thing I wish individual Alpa mec’s would do is stop negotiating flow agreements. Way more negatives than positives and takes away leverage.

sailingfun

The regionals were not allowed to fly jets as you state. Jets were not given away. Decades ago most airlines had little to no scope. As managements upsized the aircraft regionals fly mainline airlines attempted to put in restrictions that you now see today. As a example Delta’s scope section through at least 1991 had one basic restriction that aircraft over 70 seats would be flown by the mainline. There were no restrictions on number of aircraft, jets, stage lengths, size or weight. That resulted in ASA flying 4 engine jets for Delta.
Delta’s scope is vastly better today than it was back then yet pilots not even born at the time persist in stating scope was sold.

rickair7777

Technically it had five APU's, not four engines.

Allegheny

Grasshopper, your question reveals a great lack of knowledge of the industry.

1. Long Long Ago,in 1967, <https://airlinehistory.co.uk/airline/allegheny-commuter/> Allegheny Airlines started the concept of code-sharing with the Allegheny Commuter product. They used Beech99's in place of mainline Convairs at smaller stations. The Union, ALPA, didn't have good scope language at that time. Other carriers were used, wearing the Allegheny livery, to provide service to under served markets. So understand that code sharing / scope issues are always cost issues. That's why the code-share process was started in the first place.

2. The Railway Labor act does not apply to all types of aviation companies only those engaged in Common Carriage, and it defines the parties in those organizations as Air Carriers and Bargaining Agents. A mainline Bargaining Agent may place scope restrictions on types of aircraft that can code-share with the mainline airline but they cannot negotiate wages and working conditions between a pilot group / bargaining agent of another carrier and that Air Carriers management. AA wholly owned carriers are owned by AA group, but they operated by other Air Carrier certificate holders. APA cannot negotiate with Piedmont, PSA, or Envoy management. United mainline ALPA cannot negotiate with or for another pilot group, even if that pilot group is part of the same union.

3. The Railway Labor Act of 1926, did not envision aviation, then non-regulated aviation and then the types of networks now present in the world. A single carrier (certificate holder) can negotiate only with the bargaining representative of it's own employee group and vice versa. The corporate structure can be almost anything but that is not how the RLA works.