PinnacleFO

I have been posting this ever since republic had its coming out party but i believe and will continue to believe until i am proven wrong that the reason that delta,united and usair are allowing republic to continue to operate flights as regionals for them and operate their own flights on the same competing routes is that republic is getting 100+seat aircraft and when negotiations come around the majors will either try to get a less protective code share agreement from ALPA or they will cry "look at how cheap republic is operating those C-Series planes for, you need to take those rates or we need to farm those aircraft out to the regionals in order to survive"

Although some may think this is a republic bashing thread, its not i actually feel bad for republic,frontier,midwest,lynx, because i think they are all being used to get around scope.

I am very worried about the future of the industry, I challenge and support ALPA to do everything they can to stop this mess.

What are your thoughts on this?

rickair7777

I do not think RAH's major feed partners want them as a competitor, nor do they want them to operate 100 seat airplanes.

The simple fact is that their feed contracts with RAH generally only apply to the operating certificate in question.

This means that in the case of DAL for example, RAH must comply with all DAL contract and scope limitations, but only for the Shuttle America operating certificate. Similar for their other partners.

RAH has a lot of operating certs and contractually they can do whatever they want with the ones which don't fly for their feed partners.

mwa1

I would speculate that a major, perhaps an international one would desire to link up with RAH in a codeshare.

Superpilot92

i agree and the cords will be cut as soon as possible. This likely will end very ugly for RAH.

USMC3197

Then explain their more recent AA flying out of Chicago was it? I don't remember, it was like 1 or 2 weeks ago.

toomanyrjs

AMR inherited that contract when they bought TWA. AMR is just moving it from STL to ORD. I think I read that AMR can dump RAH in 2012. Either way, I'm sure Eagle will make life hell for RAH in ORD.

minimwage4

We all know the majors are not going to do anything about it as long as it doesn't conflict with their contracts. They have no reason to stop this when it could mean cheaper labor down the road with Airbus/737 replacements. But really they don't need RAH, what they need is less restrictive scope. For right now ALPA is the only one that can do anything about it. They need to protect scope. The RAH union is obviously in bed with management, ever since their CHQ contrac which was a gateway to 99 seaters, they knew it. It's up to ALPA and the major pilots. ALPA dropped the ball on it before with RJs because they didn't know their significance. Now they know.

Diver Driver

Maybe there is an element of this that I do not understand, but it makes no sense to me for an airline to directly fund a regional carrier that operates a subsidiary that is in direct competition with that mainline carrier.

rickair7777

I agree, this is not some vast conspiracy with all of the majors colluding with the reverend to move narrow-body flying to the regionals.

The majors don't want RAH as a competitor and they certainly don't want to subsidize the growth of said competitor, but they are stuck with their current contracts.

When the time comes to renew, the majors will evaluate the impact RAH is having on the competitive environment. If it is minimal, they will allow RAH to bid. If RAH is having significant success, they will not be invited to bid on renewal of their contract flying...at that point they will need to be ready to stand alone.

SkyHighHobo

RAH has done nothing but notice the writing on the wall. The 50-75 seat future of their existence is non existent. Evolve or go the way of Mesa. The evolutionary path they have chosen is is uncharted territory. Independence Air didn't work out too well, the E170 operation has its limits, and in order to grow and keep costs low(er), this is a logical step. It appears buying the shell of a proud brand will not play out for them in Milwaukee. F9, well, we'll see what happens there...