I don't think so. DAL said they want to park 100 CRJ200s in 2010. But there are no more CRJ900s to be added from anywhere. 76 seat RJ numbers are maxed out. Mesaba only has 17 CRJ200s whereas Pinnacle, Comair, SkyWest have many 50 seat RJs flying for DAL. I expect to see many CRJ200s phased out in the next couple of years. Some cities currently served by Saabs will be replaced with CRJ200s for the time being, so I'd say Pinnacle CRJ200 flying will be untouched for the time being.

However, RA said in an interview that he wants to keep most of the flying inhouse in the future, and that if he was in charge back when DAL sold ASA to SkyWest, he would not have signed such a long DCI contract with SkyWest, so if I had to take a guess, as DCI contracts expires, he will simply not renew them with third party DCIs.

 

Compass

April 1, 2013....

 

Makes sense, so in the short term the wholly owned carriers (well Comair most likely) are screwed until the Skywest Inc./RAH/Mesa/Pinnacle contracts disappear.

Is it 100 CRJ-200s specifically? Or 100 50 seaters? Do the 20 ASA -200s leaving count in that total?

Will RA look to "code share" in the future to get around both long term contracts and scope? It might be an easy way for him to get 100 seaters on property through RAH. I hope it doesn't happen and I hope DALPA has protection against it.

 

Pinnacle's contracts are both set to expire in 2017. The -200 ASA (air service agreement) is for a minimum of 124 airframes. Pending a work stoppage or BK protection this fleet number cannot be lowered. There IS a provision for a 1:1 swap for a larger airframe for a -200. This can include 700's or 900's (or technically any airframe over 50 seats). The DL scope is currently tapped at the 76 seat capacity but from my calculations you could still have some additional 70 seat feed. That can be in a -900 as long as it's for only 70 seats. I believe skywest did this in the past. The 2:1 provision does exist but NOT below 124 airframes. This clause could have been used when we had 140 -200's. Now at 124 only a 1:1 applies. The ASA for the -900 is at the lowest of 16 and can have more airframes added (obviously 76 seat scope is full right now). 140 airframes total (-200 and -900) is the min contractually unless the agreements are re-negotiated. Hope that clarifies things.

 

I think DALPA has to approve codeshares per their contract.

 

That's really really good news.

 

SkyWest/ASA 2021

 

Wow, that is a long time. Is that everything or do some aircraft leave earlier?

 

That's the amendable date of the pilot contract, I think the OP was asking about air service agreements, which we don't have due to being wholly owned.

Or was your answer tongue-in-cheek? In which case, haha, yeah pretty much, they'll keep us around so long as the cheap labor saves more money than they could get for chopping us up and selling us.

 

Actually, if you read DAL's SEC filing, we are gradually phased out in the last 5 years...