Will ASA get another base???
 

Ive been here at ASA for almost 2 years, I like it a lot , very happy w my choice to come here, people ask me all the time what is your biggest complaint, if any do have? So I always tell them this......Sure regional pay could always be better and whatnot however my one negative thing is that we only have 1 base. I love ASA , for a regional it certainly is a great place to work w awesome people, and from friends of mine that fly for other regional carriers and their horror stories/complaints I think that this a good place to be at and I am very thankful for that. But my question is for u ASA people out there, do you think we will ever get another base. When / where / how long before that happens??????? I know the economy sucks and we are cost cutting like crazy to make ends meet , but when will that change? I mean Skywest who owns us has like 15 bases , so why cant we have a few.......your thoughts....thanks in advance

Skywest has an operational need to have bases all over the country because the airline has heavy ops for different airlines all over the country. With ASAs current route structure, it doesn't make any sense for them to have any other bases than ATL, where the majority of your ops take place. Whether DFW or SLC will happen again, no one knows (or even MCO) but I wouldnt count on it any time soon.

Unless we pick up additional flying (not likely at the moment), it doesn't make sense to have another base - our contract with Delta locks up most of our flying in Atlanta. Besides seems every time we get a new base (LAX, SLC) it gets pulled too quickly.

I've heard credible rumors of another base opening up sometime next spring. This will coincide with the placement of the 20 50s Delta no longer wants. an early contender was IAD, but now it sounds like that fell through. The likely contender(s) are now CLE and/or EWR.

If it's ewr...i'm goin there immediately.....i'm from jersey and everyone wants to avoid that place and it would be a 45 minute drive for me

Do you have an outstation that is serviced my two or more DAL hubs with high frequency that is locked up in long term contracts? If so then you can expect a domicile soon.

Examples, we connect the following out of this outstation bases:

TUS: Mx Base
UAL - DEN, SFO, LAX
DAL - SLC

FAT: Mx Base
UAL - SFO, LAX, DEN, LAS
DAL - SLC

PSP: Mx Base
UAL - LAX, SFO, DEN, LAS
DAL - SLC

SBA:
UAL - LAX, SFO, DEN, SJC
DAL - SLC

SMF:
UAL - LAX, SFO, DEN
DAL - SLC

COS: Mx Base
UAL - LAX, SFO, DEN, ORD
DAL - SLC, ATL

Without pilot domiciles in these outstations our cost would be much higher due to the large number of RON crews.

As for other DAL domiciles that you fly into…………………..is your flying there guaranteed by your contract? I know ASA has such wording for ATL but I’m not sure about CVG, JFK or MCO. If there isn't a contract in place then a pilot domicile makes no long tern sense seeing things can change without breach of contract.

According to SH (CP) last summer, Delta really wanted us to have MCO and CVG bases but we refused unless they gave us at least 2 year guarantees for each base.

Last summer may as well have been 20 years ago. Scott's story changes by the day!

ASA has tossed around outstation mini bases over the years but has never pulled the trigger. The top contender is BTR since it's a maintenance base with a lot of overnight flights. CAE is another one I've heard (mx base).

However, these rumors involve new hub flying with a hub base for a different airline (not Delta or UAL).

When I was in recurrent they were talking about a virtual base at CAE. This was 5 months or so ago. Have you heard anything else about this happening recently?