Airline Pilot Central Forums - Future of United Express

Quote:

Originally Posted by point80 (Post 3094644)

I know a lot of people are going to be upset about what I have to say but several UAX carriers are closing going into 2021. TSA numbers today were 26% of last year. Word on the street is UA is planning on giving the rj flying to Skywest, Mesa, and Republic. Air Wisconsin, go jet, CommutAir, and xjet will be closing by 2021. You can be in denial all you want but this is happening.

SK warned that 50 seaters will be a thing of the past. The only 50 seater UA wants in its fleet are the 550s. And out of those 4 companies only one of them (go jet) has them on property. The problem is those planes dont belong to GJ they belong to UA and can be pulled at anytime. Air Whisky is planning on buying 700s and converting them to 550 but have no contract in place. A little too late for UA to save them. Should have invested in newer planes yrs ago. Xjet and CommutAir both fly 145s and xjet has the oldest most expense pilot group. UA has ownership in both companies but is losing more than profiting at this point and just like you should with stocks they will cut there losses.

Currently Skywest runs the west coast with no competition. They own their planes, gates and maintenance. Bc of economy of scale they are able to give UA a discount in flight prices. Its why they are getting 3x the hours from UA than any other RJ at over 38,000 hrs.

In 2nd place with flight hours from UA is Mesa. Obviously most people will point to how cheap they are and race to the bottom and this is true But it is not the only reason. Mesa will be expanding in this pandemic. What people dont know is JO and SK have a long standing relationship that goes back decades to the days of America West. Johnny-O like always has slithered his way into another great situation. After out maneuvering Xjet for 175s by offering to buy them instead of UA leasing them for xjet. Then offering to lease his 700s to go jet to turn into more 550s to expand go jets fleet (all pre covid). JO is reneging on GoJet and keeping the 700s with Mesa to convert to 550s himself. Mesa will be getting 20 new 175s starting in Sep at 2 a month. At the same rate be converting 700s to 550s to open new bases in EWR and ORD with them while the new 175s stay in IAD. Mesas training department is going to be bringing back the furloughed trainees come Aug/Sep and is getting ready for a ramp up. Its expected that UA will be pulling GoJets 550s and handing them to Mesa. JO had also placed a large bid for more 700s to hit the market to expand past that.

Republic is in 3rd place in terms of hrs from UA. But barely behind Mesa. Even though Republic has seen a large reduction in flight hours from UA the expectation is that is mainly due to EWR and international travel. Word on the street is UA will be giving a boat load of flying to Republic out of EWR once international travel starts to return. I also expect them to increase flying out of ORD once other carriers fold that are currently there. I know Republic pilots didnt like hearing 40% work force reduction but I believe when its all said and done it will be closer to 20%. Unfortunately Republic was in the middle of expanding during covid and is way over staffed.

To conclude, there will only be 6 regional companies in one years time. I expect AA will merge two of its rjs and fold the 3rd with Envoy being the name saved. Delta has planned to save Endeavor with a full force effort to give them most of flying. Mesa will renew its contract with AA in Jan but the fleet will be reduced by at least 20-25 planes while expanding with UA and starting DHL express. Skywest and Republic will continue to work for all 3 legacies. And finally Horizon will be taken care of by Alaskan and will be expanding in the place of RavnAir.

I’ve heard pretty close to the same things stated here except that AA wants to shed Yv and give that flying to a WO.