mccube5

Anyone with any insight please discuss...

what are the realistic chances that whiskey will pick up some new flying in the future? what are the performance numbers of the comany (on time & completion %) that would make it appealing to a company now that i think airlines are starting to look beyond simply the lowest operator?

saab2000

Hmmm... You are asking a question that every employee of AWAC is asking.

Our stats used to be great at United as United Express. They are no longer great, but it is also known that many of the problems regarding our statistics are not our fault. We are not short staffed (yet) and we don't do any of our own ground handling.

The delays we endure are very rarely crew or company induced, except maintainance and every company has those issues.

AWAC upper management seems to be aware that things are not all that rosy at AWAC at the moment and seem to be trying some things which might result in this being a better company.

We are all a bit skeptical about it but the CEO in his recent presentation was asked a VERY important question. He was asked if the owners of the company are behind the improvement efforts and want to see the company grow and succeed long-term. The answer he gave was "Yes".

Ours is a privately held company and they keep their strategy very close to themselves. Often earthshaking announcements are the first the employees hear about what will happen. Rumors are complete BS at AWAC and if it is a rumor you can be pretty certain it won't happen.

They also admit that we will have to get larger aircraft sooner or later in order to be competitive. But their business approach is very different from most airlines in that they are not part of the 'Flavor of the Month' club when it comes to aircraft orders and product. They are long-term thinkers/investors and spend their money very conservatively. It has done them well over the years and AWAC has VERY deep pockets and a lot more influence in the industry than most people think, given the modest name and no-so-big size of the fleet or airplanes.

I think there is a future at AWAC, but what that future is is completely unclear. Your guess is as good as mine.

Right now we operate seventy 50-seat RJs. That could change tomorrow and that would be the first any of us would have heard of it.

mccube5

Thanks for the response Saab, exactly the kind of insider viewpoint i was hoping for.

It would be great to see you guys score a big contract flying something bigger than the 50 seaters. Who knows, if they have deep pockets and have solid business plans maybe they know exactly what they are doing by holding off on something bigger for just a little longer. You guys have great pilots and always better to see people like that get ahead as opposed to the bottom feeders out there.

Window_Seat

Why would it be great for a regional to be flying anything larger than 50 seaters again? AWAC would get my vote if it had to be that way though.

groovinaviator

That is something that doesn't seem to even matter anymore... every regional that I have ever sat in the cockpit of just lies about their times when they call them in. I would assume that AWAC's on time performance is lower than some because our ACARS prevents us from be dishonest about it. I noticed the dishonesty again today on CHQ... No one seems to care about the final product, but just their own numbers. This includes all aspects of airline operations. No one the ops aspect of the industry is such a cluster F...

saab2000

Believe me, I would like all the so-called "regional" airlines to be "regional" again. That means max 50. Better yet, max 19 seats. But it ain't that way anymore unfortunately.

I would love to have my next airplane be a 90 seat airliner. At a major or legacy carrier on their seniority list.

With that said, that ain't gonna happen probably. So I hope that AWAC does what it needs to do. Besides, historically AWAC was always an operator of larger airplanes and not always a traditional regional feeder. The BAe-146s we had held up to 100 passengers. Air Wisconsin has also operated the BAC-111 at one time.

It was an independent operator which over time become a 'regional' carrier like the others, but also had a different history than most.

But in today's market I think they will have to be able to operate 76-seat airplanes to make competitive bids to other carriers if they want a chance to work for them.

United...... Mesa replacement......

Jetsnake

What I can tell you is this.
I left Air Willy almost 2 years ago. I spent nearly 7 years
of my flying time there.

When I started there. It didn't matter whether you were
hired by a Major. They were just below major pay and above
all regionals. I loved that place. We had nice looking F/A's and
great trip rig's. That was then, and this is now.

When I left there. I was lucky to have 6 days home on a good
month. Depends on where you live. Now I'm home every month.
1 on, 1 off. I have to travel have way around the planet to do it,
but I have no regrets. There are still great people there. They have
one of the best training departments I have ever encountered in
my travels.

Where there going is anyone's guess. But I do wish everyone there
the best; that is still there.

I left there for QOL issues. QOL was not there anymore. So I moved on.

Jetsnake

mccube5

That's just it, i think it would be silly to reiterate how we would all like to see anything over 50 seats in the fleet of a major....BUT....as said before it ain't happening and since thats the case one can only hope that the flying gets awarded to the finer establishments that deserve it, like whiskey

BoilerUP

Our company has said US Airways has told them many times our on-time and completion numbers in PHL are better than any other Express carrier to have their previously had an operation based there (in my recent memory, CHQ/Mesa/PSA). It is a difficult environment to keep a schedule in, with them closing MXE and/or PTW departure gates if there is a cumulus cloud east of Pittsburgh...and we are doing increasingly more flying into BOS and LGA as Chautauqua pulls 50 seaters and replaces them with 175s. That said...on paper, the numbers still blow. Considering all the stuff that isn't AWAC's fault though, they seem to be pretty good.

For some reason, I keep thinking (hoping?) AWAC's growth avenue will be in large turboprops...or something that can also handle the ASE market. I guess we've got 8 or so years to find out, eh?

Yzerman

I mean no disrepect to anyone, but is he really going to say NO to that?