They are going to increasingly bring the flying to the WOs at the expense of non-WO regionals. I think the WOs will essentially be a giant B-scale (more so than all regionals already are). Pay will be good, but only in comparison to how bad it has been industry-wide the past decade. Obviously it won't be anywhere near what mainline makes and our benefits will never touch what they have. But it's where regional flying will mostly be consolidated to over the next few years. That's my "educated guess" anyways.

 

Okay, well, more rumor fun.

Ejets to Dulles (maybe related to yesterday's United announcement regarding 737's and E175's?), but no Hawaii. 700's would go to DFW or PHX (soon to shrink for mainline). To make it all happen, a CBA would have to be reached in the next few months for predictable long term labor costs. The question is pay: management acknowledges the last offer was inadequate, but how much higher will they go? Another factor in play is an offer for flow through to United, which could offset less-than-industry-standard pay rates. So, how much lower, and what kind of flow are we talking? Is it 30 people a month no-questions-asked or a preferential interview for one pilot a year? If this is all true, and if management wants to make it happen, maybe they'll deal. It sounds like mainline is willing to back reasonable pay increases for stable long term lift. If there is a flow with it, maybe the price will be right.

Or this could all be wrong.

 

This is a really sad, but also not unexpected comment from a Mesa pilot. Anything to justify their low pay.

 

I'm not justifying anything, only laying out management's likely playbook.

Starting pay is presently a third of the American wholly-owned's. That's undeniably unacceptable. A 3rd year Captain's W2 is on par with a 1st year Envoy FO's. Also unacceptable. However, if 1st year pay came up to $35-45k, in line with SkyWest/RAH/TSA/etc., and Captains lose the 200 base rate along with reasonable pay bumps, I'm simply saying a mainline flow program might delay the decision to jump ship to an LCC. But pay absolutely needs to be in the ballpark.

 

Just to offset everyone who claims that unstacking is strictly a staffing issue and nothing else, I present exhibit A. This is why there's unstacking. This is based off of a first pass run.

Columns are Date; Actual Coverage; Open Trips; Net Coverage

20161201 8 0 8
20161202 9 0 9
20161203 10 0 10
20161204 10 0 10
20161205 10 0 10
20161206 9 0 9
20161207 8 0 8
20161208 10 0 10
20161209 11 0 11
20161210 10 0 10
20161211 10 1 9
20161212 10 1 9
20161213 10 1 9
20161214 11 1 10
20161215 10 1 9
20161216 10 1 9
20161217 9 1 8
20161218 7 1 6
20161219 11 0 11
20161220 10 0 10
20161221 12 0 12
20161222 10 5 5
20161223 10 11 -1
20161224 5 18 -13
20161225 6 22 -16
20161226 7 17 -10
20161227 8 11 -3
20161228 10 4 6
20161229 10 0 10
20161230 10 0 10
20161231 8 0 8

 

Doesn't look pretty over Christmas

 

Honestly, there's a higher chance of one of our unicorns having a menage a trois with two Kardashian sisters than our pilot group getting a no interview/no questions flow to mainline.

However it would be amazing news for us 2013/14 hires considering the top 200 pilots are NEVER leaving, not even for a flow through agreement. But it's nothing more than a wet dream at this point.

 

Yeah, I think a lot of it is wishful thinking too. Just some gossip.
No it doesn't. So what happens when there aren't enough pilots to fly the schedule?

I do find it amusing that industry management thinks you can staff lean for normal times then expect to fly extra at peak times.

 

Oh it's not going out like that. Right now it's giving everyone X-Mas off who asked for it. Next step will be some unstacking which puts seniority back into place and cleans up the issue. But the example is there that if you look at the rest of the month you'll notice there's nothing else open and numbers are fine.

 

Gotcha. Thanks for explaining.