A few numbers about the August schedule, now that its a little easier to see from UA...

From July into August (comparing two Mondays, JUL 27 and AUG 3), only C5 and YV had a net loss of daily departures (-6 and -2 respectively). EV, G7 and YX had a small net gain (+5, 6 and 8). OO and ZW had the biggest gains, with a net increase of 44 and 38 daily departures respectively. By percent of July's schedule, the only two carriers to experience more than 10% growth were GJ and ZW. The largest loss by percent was C5 with a 9% loss.

The 175 operators' share of the UAX market is about the same as it was in July. OO has the most departures, then YX, then YX last. Similarly, the 700s' departures remain largely the same as July.

The gains between the two Mondays were almost entirely in the 50 seat market (OO's increase operationally was *only* an increase of their 200s). ZW picked up some flying in IAD, adding 10 departures while C5 lost 6. Other than that no real shift in base presence among the carriers. The 550s were the only type of 50 seater to be in EWR.



**These numbers are a comparison of two Mondays, one in July and one in August. They count daily departures, not block hours.

Well something doesn’t add up. Looking at pairings it appears there was a large increase August over July for is here at YV both for the 175 and for the 700s. Can you look later in August? Typically the 3rd is part of the prior months flying.

The 3rd is as far as I can see in this detail for now. I suppose it could be like you say, although there is definitely a meaningful difference for a few of the airlines between the two weeks. Perhaps your airlines has more flying on other days of the week. I am, after all, only comparing one day to another, though it is usually one of the busiest days of the week.

Well it happened in April and May that after we were issued schedules; they changed.

I audited some random routes and the Aug 10 schedule looks identical as far as I could tell for YX. Maybe there were some last minute changes from when they gave you all pairings. Either way, I'm pretty confident in my assessment.

My condolences to those at Expressjet who are getting the news everyone fears today.

I wonder to myself, is this where the UAX carrier cuts end? Or is Xjet just the canary in the coal mine?

depends when the vaccine is ready

Scooter says the 50 seater is going away. So this is just a 2-3 year reprieve in my mind for C5 and ZW.

I think this is only the beginning.

Expect an announcement from United in the coming weeks
We only need one 200 operator. We will go with the cheapest one.
Then we only need one 700 operator—-so on and so on
They will continue this shuffle until they dwindle down to the size they want to be

ZW is in the same boat as EV, very top heavy , a lot of 15-20 year lifers left.
Very expensive pilot group
gonna be interesting

Could Expressjet survive as an aircraft Maintenance operator? The memo doesn't specifically declare that Expressjet will shut down or close it's doors or liquidate or anything along those lines. It just basically says United chose Commutair to be it's E145 operator.

The impression I have is that Expressjet is the gold standard on E145 maintenance.

No but they did say they were working on winding down operations over the next couple of months. I would imagine that means everything.

Using that analogy, I think Trans States might have been the canary in the coal mine. Expressjet is the first miner going down. Either way, it sucks for both groups (I was in the former).

Email said united signed a contract with c5 to 2026

They had a contract with Expressjet too. In these times it’s not worth the paper it’s written on . Means nothing , just a formality.

It’s not hard to get out of a contract when you own the sub contractor.

Only if you're owned. Otherwise you have to buy the subcontractor out on whatever terms they want, or try to abrogate the contact in Ch.11 (no guarantees, it's up to the judge).

If you employ both owned and contractor regionals, it's not going to make sense to pay the contractor to not fly so you can also pay the WO (or partially owned) to fly. Obviously cheaper to keep the guy you're contractually stuck with anyway.

Don't make the mistake of assuming that working for an owned regional gives you any kind of special status (other than maybe nonrev priority). It's usually the opposite at crunch time.

Yup.

You seem very bearish on ZW all the time. What's with that? Not that it's definitely going to survive or anything but still, you always seem convinced of the worst.

flying a disfavored airframe with only one contract. It’s just less stable

as for subcontractor vs WO ... all depends on the contract with the sub. The details of how fast, how far and with what notice a major can draw down are critical. If 180 day notice is required some smart people were giving notice 6 months ago

Nooe, not at all , however I don’t live in a fantasy world either .
In order for ZW to survive this someone is gonna have to get down on all 4s, bend over and go under the desk with a Bibb on if you catch my drift . It’s gonna be tough . Adding the 700 isn’t a lifesaver . Mesa , SkyWest and gojet all fly it too so once again cost will be the determining factor as shown with c5 and ev . With those four , it would be a safe assumption that Zw’s cost and payroll are probably the highest .

I mean didn’t AWAC sign a 4 year deal with UAL in early 2017? Not sure when the 4 years starts/ends (somewhere between Q1 2021- Q1 2022) but I don’t know how bullish I’d be right now. I really hope I’m wrong, I’ve got a few friends at AWAC and crews have always been great to me. Hopefully things turn around before COVID Claims another airline

4 year contract is only good if

1) there aren’t meaningful escape clauses
2) United isn’t willing to play hardball and just break the contract leaving AWAC’s estate to pursue them in court

ZW is in the same boat except for the fact that if ZW is losing money it means nothing to UA. If ExpressJet or commutair are losing money United is losing money. ZW losses money, their owners lose money. Express and commute lose money united loses money. United is trying to save their money, they could care less about others losing money.

ZW doesn't care about losing money in the short-term. To the owners, the airline is an investment. ZW doesn't need to stay profitable throughout this to stay alive, it just needs a war chest to limp along until it can be profitable again.

that’s my point, ZW can limp along at a loss for the next few years knowing they will come out of the other side with less competition. The companies that are either partly or wholly owned by major or ones that are publicly traded have a lot more pressure to break even or make a profit at all cost. Short term United had to get rid of something it was dumping money into to show investors that’s its doing everything it can so save money.

Interesting perspective. Can you expand on this, cite some examples possibly?

it’s fairly straightforward. Let’s say you sign a two-year cell phone contract with Verizon. And you also pay your son the same amount per month to mow the yard.you lose your job, who do you stop paying?

Famous last words of a Comair pilot

I'm not so sure ZW has that many super senior people around after the last few years of hiring into the majors and elsewhere. They aren't as top heavy as they once were.

We still have a few, but again, the company doesn't care how much money they burn as long as it's eventually profitable again, and they're trying everything right now.

Both
🤣🤣😂🤣🤣

I’m gonna say something that will tick off a bunch of people and I know I’m gonna get a lot of backlash for it but here goes. First of all I don’t want to see anyone loose their job , especially in these crazy times . However ,some of these regionals need to go away. There may very well be one or two more that don’t make it so dont be surprised if it happens.
Over the past few years whenever xyz airlines wanted to expand domestically they went to abc regional to fly rjs from point a to b instead of expanding within mainline. This only creates more jobs at the regional level and not at mainline, thus further delaying most pilots time at the regionals .
Now you have people flying from dc to dfw , Ord to ny and two or three hour trips on with rjs instead of mainline aircraft.This was never the intended purpose of regionals.
No one seen this pandemic coming, no way no how, but it is doing something that ironically needed to be done and that is clean up this industry and rid itself of a lot of rjs and regional outfits .
When this is over and abc airlines want to expand domestically, they will look internally first instead of depending on rj lift , therefore creating more jobs for us down the road . It will sting for awhile for all of us but for those who stick it out for a few years more I think the opportunities will once again be plentiful one day .Im sorry for those who have lost their job and for those who willl in the coming months , but in a funny round about way the regional model needed to cannablize itself so that we may all have a better chance at the heavy metal down the road .
Rant over ——😐😐😐

The sad thing is that this crisis will more likely be the end of mainline narrowbody flying, than regionals. This will get so much worse before there is any recovery, every single legacy will go through Chapter 11, and on the other side, there will be regionals flying Airbii.

Thanks for selling out on scope (not you personally, but for the senior guys who did it).

doubtful unless you convince a BK judge to allow 1 company to undercut the industry. Doubt too many gout at mainline today will sell any scope. Current scope clauses at every legacy restrict regional block hours to a % of mainline block hours, No way that ends voluntarily

"we are not viable without scope relief"
"ok"
"thank you".

What has changed that meant you were viable before but you are not viable now in the long term?

There was this thing called COVID.
It sort of changed the whole playing field.

This is a cataclysmic event. The industry won't be the same after this.

If it is the same union for both XJT and UAL, then why did they let UAL get away with this?

pretty sure cause it isnt....its alpA.....its an association of seperate unions.

XJT union.....United union......both under an association.

AFAIK