They also better remember Dion’s signature on a document promising a pilot vote.

But first they should remember they can’t even operate Reserve correctly. Maybe they should fix that first.


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There's a Union all pilot call this Saturday, so maybe we'll hear more then.

 

Never but into rumors. Nothing is true until the second it happens.

 

With the LCC's starting to hire FO's with restricted ATP mins starting at around $70 an hour first year up to about $110 the next, AA needs to do something drastic to keep the lights on at the wholly owneds.

Whether or not they will, is the big question none of us have the answer to yet.

If they don't do something big however i don't see how we don't keep bleeding pilots until we can't operate anymore.

 

I think do nothing is the plan.

The current model isn’t sustainable and a sustainable model isn’t cost-competitive. They’re gonna get as many ASM’s as they can then mainline will have to clean up the mess.

 

Pilots get paid by how many seats are on the plane. The LCC’s have 130+ seaters so much more wiggle room to pay the pilots more compared to the regionals capped at 76 seats.

Delta isn’t making money on their A220 because their staff is too expensive. They can’t just up the pay rates and operates flights at a loss so don’t expect rates to go up to LCC rates.

 

Only problem I see with that is without the regional lift getting passengers to the AA hubs then AA is going to really struggle to fill flights.

I fully expect them to wait until the problem is catastrophic before making a move, but letting the wholly owneds fold doesn't seem like an option. I could see a wholly owned merger or maybe even a staple to mainline.

 

I more think they'll try to make regional Captain pay on par with LCC FO pay in order to try to slow down attrition.

 

i would categorize a staple as mainline cleaning up the mess.

making the model work without regional feed is an enormous problem… i agree. That does not make LCA’s and Captains grow on trees.

the fundamental issue here is whether a FFD model is cheaper than all-mainline. (Short-term or long-term may be different answers). Mainline will use regionals until they stop saving money.

IIRC the current APA contract has crj900 rates. Maybe they bring it in house.

A WO merger might have worked 5 years ago. They don’t have time to pull it off now. Three unions, three types, a half dozen bases … that will take a couple years to integrate and it doesn’t change the three-week half-life of an LCA

Edit: regarding pay and attrition. There’s some pilot-pay tipping point where mainline makes more sense. Idk where that is but probably much higher than what you need to keep people from leaving for mainline