Regionals are not "picking up" anything. If Beford used the term "expand south" he is pulling a Jedi Mind Trick. You cannot expand when you are already way down on block hours. Aircraft at all regionals are severely under utilized right now, so the only thing that is happening is a race to get full utilization out of each airframe. QRH Bingo was spot on when he said the regional model is a game of shuffling stuff around. Its not growth or expansion, its a shell game.

Mesas Future
 

My two cents is that United buying Mesa is far-fetched. Besides the scope-clause issue, why would they want every Mesa pilot regardless of training history, DUI’s, etc? They need pilots, but not that badly.

I also think that United can’t afford to lose Mesa right now. They would lose the majority of their regional capacity at IAH, and a significant chunk at IAD. No regionals are in a position to pick up flying at the moment, especially Commutair. United Mainline can’t just add hundreds of regional flights at these bases in a month, either.

They will keep Mesa limping along until they find a long term replacement, or merge Mesa with another regional. October is just too soon for United to kill Mesa without serious operational disruptions.

That being said, as many of commented, Mesa won’t be around for long. The regional model just isn’t sustainable anymore. Hopefully it ends with a soft landing rather than a bang (like expressjet) in a year or two.

Guess we'll see

This is a dumb take. If an airline is bought by another airline, all those pilots move to the airline no matter what. You can't just terminate and fire them.

They're taking in pilots without bachelors degrees. What do you think is a bigger media frenzy... The media finding out the pilot crashed the plane had a couple of training unsats, or that they don't have any college degree at all? Or might not even have a high school diploma or any degree for that matter. Lol. The public would go crazy if they found out an uneducated person was in control of the plane. And that seems to be who the airlines are hiring now days. High school drop outs and people with no degrees. That would be a far bigger issue.

AAWO have a contractual flow where they have to take every pilot into AA regardless of thier history.

No UA (or any other legacy) is not going to merge any regional into mainline... you simply cannot legally staple such a pilot group and there's no way they're going to let a random group of regional lifers who they haven't QA'd bid widebody CA seats. And if anybody was going to do that it would be AA.

Anybody telling you otherwise is kidding themselves, or trying to BS junior folks into staying and bailing the ship a little longer.

The closest you might come to that... liquidation with ALPA preferential interviews.

Best possible outcome: mesa limps along like it always has and comes out the other side, like it always has. Jonathon Livingston Cockroach is a survivor, and the legacies really do *not* want to break the regional business model if they can help it.

Hiring standards
 

I have to disagree and say that the public would be more outraged to learn their pilot has DUI's, a criminal history, or accident history rather than no college degree. And this is in absolutely no way to disparage these pilots. I think the "lifers" at the regionals are some of the best to fly with. Most actually take pride in what they do, do it well, and have seen enough in their time to be some damn good pilots. A far-cry from the "get your time and get out" pilots.

But the majors don't see it that way. All of the flows, unless I am mistaken, have some sort of "final-review" by a hiring committee, interview, or both. The contract always has stipulations. They look at exactly these things to cover THEIR ass. Not saying it's right, but it's what they do. That is why most pilots with a history are confined to the regionals.

Now a regional merging with a mainline would be unprecedented. Historically it has been mainline to mainline mergers or regional to regional mergers. When American merged with US Air or United with Continental, they knew their pilots were held to the same (or very close) hiring standards. Mesa is known for giving pilots a second chance, which has benefitted both the airline and pilots. But United knows these hiring standards are not the same. Not to mention all the low-time pilots with a R-ATP, which United would never traditionally hire.

A regional merging with a major would be unprecedented territory, and I don't think United would just welcome all pilots with open arms. This is true for any regional, not just Mesa. It's why Aviate still has a final review where they look at everything from your training record to how many days you called in sick. It is not as simple as walking off Mesa property and onto United's. I think this is a major reason why United WILL NOT buy/merge/acquire Mesa.

I agree a criminal, accident, or dui is worse then having no degree and worse than training unsats . However jetblue is still hiring felons and people with DUIs like crazy. And the legacies still hire these kinds of people like crazy as well at this moment, so it's not space shuttle standards you think at the legacies. However, the point here was training failures. The media and the general public think pilots are highly intelligent and graduated from the top of thier class (lol), as corny as that sounds, that's the public perception of pilots. So it would be a much more controversial issue if something where to happen, and they found out the pilot had no degree what so ever, than if they had some training unsats.

The final point is, a regional never merged with a legacy, so it would be a first and NO ONE knows how it would play out. It would be up to the union and lawyers. Everything said here, is pure speculation.

There is no reason for a merger between a legacy and a regional since there is nothing to gain. The legacy already owns all of the flying. Mergers between legacies have worked by complimenting each other and expanding the network. Mergers between regionals can consolidate equipment and crews to better serve their contracts. A legacy only needs a regional to operate as long as it serves their needs. Being that legacies have zero problems filling classes, they don’t need all of the pilots either. They could pick and choose those that they wanted and never deal with the expense and hassles of a merger. The aircraft and flying could then be redistributed as they see fit.

Finally some reality and not just pipe dreams. There are those who have been wishing for Mesa's fiery demise for years, and those who think they will be mainline United pilots in a month. The truth, as always, will be somewhere in the middle.

For right now United needs Mesa to improve their reliability and keep the 70/76 seat rj’s moving. As long as United needs Mesa, they will pump money into them and they’ll be around. Dropping carriers that only operate 50 seat jets that are being phased out isn’t the problem that allowing a major disruption to the dual class bigger rj’s would be. A more realistic merger would be between CommutAir and Mesa. They could consolidate crews to fullly staff the 175’s while retiring the 145’s.