I totally get your rationale. I've asked myself that question countless times. "What if the Regional Airline Association would just say 'we are not flying for inadequate pay anymore. We're walking out.'?" Unfortunately we don't have the level of solidarity to cancel half the commercial flights in the US.

It's not that pilots are willing to fly for less. It's that they're willing to compromise for the promise that they'll one day fly mainline equipment with the inflated pay rates. We've created a culture in our community that says you have to pay your dues because it protects mainline jobs. Are mainline pilots willing to negotiate contracts that would allow the legacy carriers to pay their regional pilots more? Or dissolve the "regional" model entirely and absorb all those contract carriers? Our legacy carriers have to find some way of remaining competitive in order to pay what they pay to mainline employees.

According to their CEO, they have a decent network in Europe and the US cities they want to serve are big enough to support point to point.

I live in RDU. Many people drive to IAD to take Norwegian. Pretty crazy but it saves a family a couple thousand bucks. Not too bad for a 4 hour drive.

Norwegian is basically the jetBlue of international travel. They aren't Spirit - they have a decent product. This is why the legacies are in trouble. Even Delta.

Bigger issue is the costs to operate a business here in the US. IF, and I do mean IF, Trump can fix that we will be in a lot better position.

Of course he gets it. How can anyone logically claim that a pilot flying for NAI is a scab and should be denied a jump seat when regional pilots are allowed on that same jump seat?

I am a corporate pilot, and I fly to and from my aircraft several times a month to get home for days off etc. I have flown from city pairs on mainline 737's and the same exact city pairs on 175's. You mainline pilots do realize that these regional pilots are flying routes that should be mainline routes and both regional pilots are likely getting combined pay of less than what the 737 FO makes?

If you want to know what your greatest threat is...it is regional carriers and LCCs. Cabotage prevents foreign carriers from encroaching on your domestic routes. Those are the routes your unions should have fought to the bitter end to protect. Alas, what is done is done.

Now, I am certainly not advocating denying regional pilots a jump seat. I'm simply trying to illustrate a point.

Now lets talk about protectionism and capitalism. I have flown on foreign carriers (Korean Air, Emirates, Qatar) on international routes. The equipment was better, the service was better, and the cost of my tickets were always around 30% less expensive than US based carriers.

Lets say the next administration or the one after that kicks out all of these carriers (which won't happen). How do you think the flying public will react to suddenly having to pay significantly higher fares? Fares that would then face even higher price pressure as there is less competition to keep prices in check (The answer: The public WILL NOT like it)?

Now, guess what population in the United States is a larger group: Those that fly in the back of airplanes or those that fly in the front of them? The politicians will try to appeal to the largest of these groups, and the flying public by far outnumbers those employed by the airline industry.

You may think that I am pro NAI, but I am not. If it were up to me, I'd love the United States to have a strong airline industry with no competition from foreign carriers. I'd love mainline crews to make 500k+ per year too. The reality is globalization happens...and funny enough it is the prevalence of rapid transport across the globe (aircraft!) that has been one of the key components of the increase in globalization.

If you drive a car, you are participating in globalization (even a ford or a chevy, as I've flown parts from Mexico and Canada to Ford and Chevy plants). If you fly an Airbus, Embraer, Bombardier, and even a Boeing, a lot of your components come from abroad. Thanks for helping crush the US aerospace components and manufacturing industry!

Do you wear clothes? Literally any article of clothing at all? Thanks for destroying that industry too!

Have you shopped at Walmart? Do you put gas in your car? Do you drink almost any brand of Vodka? Tequila? Scotch?

Our industry has so far been relatively insulated from globalization. Being prepared for a shift is smart. Clumsy arguments are not.

Nah, they'd still be scabs.

A scab is a type of person anyway. A scab is a scab even before they crossed a picket line, because they had it in them to cross a picket line, they merely needed the opportunity to do so. Pilots who go there are cut of the same cloth. Its one thing to go to a foreign airline. Fine. But this is a labor busting flag of convenience scam and any pilot who flies for them is a scumbag for life.

Says the troglodyte. Deciding a person's charactor and declaring unequivocally what one would do in a future scenario when presented with a theoretical circumstance?

Someone literally defined scab for you, and your response was "I'd like to redefine it to suite my argument!"

That's the thing about scabs. You don't know they'll do it until they do it. But they know they'll do it. Going to a scumbag flag of convenience labor busting trash airline like NAI is the exact same thing. Anyone who would go there would cross a picket line.

What can Trump do about this

Deny their pathetic flag of convenience operation access to the US. Let them fight it out in the world court LOL! Europe hates those dirt bags almost as much as we do. Worst case we can tie them up for years, but maybe its better to let them buy planes and start flying and then pull the plug. That would be epic.