LizzyBorden

More realistic for them to bring on the 220 or 195's before they ever consider bringing on the 70-76 seat airplanes under mainline I can assure you that.

Your chest puffing is kinda funny by the way.

Sniper66

carry on Lizzy
carry on

keep your attitude home when and if you get on with UAL

Hedley

I don’t think that he’s wrong. Kirby does want a bunch of 175’s to feed, but he wants them farmed out to the lowest bidder. He also knows that we won’t give an inch on scope and that we wouldn’t agree to B-scale rates for United pilots to fly the 175 on our certificate. We’re taking delivery of around 100 max’s this year. We just exercised options to buy even more for future deliveries. As much as I agree that Kirby would love the rj’s, he knows that we won’t budge on scope and bringing them over to UAL would cost more than he wants to pay. He also knows that reduced frequency using larger aircraft requires fewer pilots. He seems to be doubling down on larger aircraft and reduced frequency. He needs to keep that carrot dangling out there until we have the lift to park the 145’s and 200’s. At that point UAX feed will consist of the current allotment of 70/76 seaters and UAL will do the rest with reduced frequency. The 175’s that United owns can eventually be moved to the exclusive carriers and provide plenty of seats for Aviate graduates to build experience.

fasteddie800

Yeah, been scratching my head about the whole thing, but this is what I came up with as well. An element of UA utilizing the -900s to get some (relatively) instant lift, and "shrinking Mesa to profitability" by eventually getting rid of the -900s and moving everything to the ERJ.

Mesa has -175s and -900s, and what sounds like enough pilot staffing to cover flying maybe 65% of each fleet.

Take those -900s, paint "United Express" on the side, and you've got more lift.

While you're painting planes (and I suppose some changes to the interior to accommodate the AA to UA switch), run as many of those CRJ pilots through ERJ training as you can.

Eventual goal is to have the ERJs staffed at 100%, and the CRJs gotten rid of.

Related, there is an ongoing push throughout the industry to get rid of the 50 seater CRJ-200 / ERJ-145. Both due to customer experience, and because the aircraft are just old. The mainline carriers don't want to give up the advantages of outsourcing their flying to the regionals though, so I suspect there will be a shuffle amongst the carriers. As CRJ-200s / ERJ-145s go away, carriers that had flown those aircraft will get CRJ-700s or ERJs "handed down" to them.

killbilly

How would that work? I'm still not clear on the scope issue relative to UA.

Hedley

The current number of 175’s would be reallocated to where United wants them. If a carrier lost 50 seaters, that doesn’t mean that they get 70/76 seaters in exchange. They could just become smaller or go away.

LizzyBorden

So lets see here...

Still hanging out in regional forums. check
Barks about scope and puffs out chest with a sense of self importance. check
Tells others to check their attitude if they want to work at (insert airline here). check


I have seat requests that have been in my coat pocket longer than you have been at United.

fasteddie800

Yeah. I'd love to see ERJs / CRJs flown at mainline UA. And maybe it'll happen someday.

Before that happens though, UA will shuffle airplanes from one regional operator to another. They'll keep doing that as long as they can. In the process, some regionals will shrink, some will go under. Some fleets will go away (50-seaters, etc).

From a business perspective though, it pays for UA to keep as much flying at the regional level as they can, for as long as they can, until the financials no longer pencil-out.

LizzyBorden

30+ years of regional jet flying has proven that mainline carriers do not want to dabble with regional jets. The less than 100 seat market will vanish before mainline carriers take that stuff on themselves. This is not a theory,as economics and the US airline business model have proven it so.

TransWorld

Do you think the less than 100 seat market will vanish?

Do you have a prediction of about when?