Take it easy on them. In this industry if you’re not worried, you’re not paying attention.

Cannot agree more. The industry is feast or famine and if you're not feasting right now, you're probably going to be especially hungry when the next downturn comes. We are one major or a couple minor bankruptcies away from the abrupt end of the gravy train

And that will never happen at a unionized legacy. If they attempted this they would alienate all the pilots they have on property.

Unless it is expressly prohibited by a CBA I wouldn’t put it past them. And I don’t think they’d be too worried about alienating pilots either. If guys at the LCCs knew they could start a legacy with years of longevity I’d be a true mass exodus. It would probably sink their competition. So a little bit of alienation wouldn’t offend them.

And btw. When was the last time these management types cared about alienation? How alienated you think they feel at UA and AA right now? They love fractured groups. Hell, that’s the big reason at AA they have APA and not ALPA, because they are so fractured.

Legacies are not desperate, legacies are causing other airlines to be desperate.

They cannot unilaterally decide to selectively pay some union members a bonus, but not others. Unless they get a side letter from the MEC, that kind of thing does happen but in this climate the MEC would get lynched unless lack of new hires was creating catastrophic disruption.

That's a given, CBA specifies compensation and you can't change that unilaterally either way. They can't even offer premium pay to get people to pick up trips unless it's in accordance with CBA parameters.

What they can do however is pay anything they like to people who are not yet employees... they can fund college degrees, flight school, pay off loans, etc, etc. As long as it all happens before they start indoc. Unless somebody has CBA language prohibiting that, but I haven't heard anything along those lines.

They are only desperate to staff their regionals.

Eventually they will start hiring more regional FO.

If that regional survives. Not all of them do. Ask me how I know…

Been doing it at regionals. Offering longevity. Like I said. Unless it’s expressly prohibited….