Yup, your fully aware of your industry, try XJT there sherlock...

And XJ AKA MESABA was the majority feed for NWA for quite awhile along with Pinnacle, or Express 1.


While not Wholly owned at the time still not terribly different

From Wiki, Which can explain it better than i can.

Read Bolded point...

On 14 September 2005, Northwest Airlines filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection. Subsequently, the airline withheld over $25 million in payments from their regional partners Mesaba and Pinnacle. Northwest proceeded to announce plans to ground the entire Avro fleet by Q1 2007, 10 Saab 340B aircraft by 24 January 2006, and to halt the delivery of the 13 remaining Canadair Regional Jets, leaving Mesaba with an awkward and expensive fleet of two aircraft. Facing rising fuel costs, downsizing plans, and lack of income from Northwest, Mesaba Aviation filed for Chapter 11 on 13 October 2005.
In an interview in January 2006, Mesaba President John Spanjers announced that the Mesaba fleet would be cut in half by the end of the year. Twelve Avro jets had already been removed from the fleet, and the balance would be grounded by the end of the year. 10 Saab 340 "B" model aircraft were returned to Pinnacle Airlines (from whom they were leased) during January 2006 while the 3 remaining "A" model Saab 340's and the two Canadair Regional Jets that had been delivered to Mesaba prior to bankruptcy will leave the fleet before mid-year. These changes left Mesaba with a fleet of 49 Saab 340 turboprops.[citation needed]
As of January 2006, the company employed 3,707 people.
On 14 April 2006 the company announced reductions of the RJ85 fleet, at Northwest Airlines' direction. RJ-85's ceased flying out of Memphis on June 8, and on October 31 the last RJ85 disappeared from Minneapolis/St. Paul. The last RJ85 aircraft was retired in Detroit on December 4, 2006.
Separately it was announced that one of the two 50-seat Canadair Regional Jets operated by Mesaba would be taken by Northwest to start the flying operations (expected in late 2006) of newly formed Northwest Airlines subsidiary Compass Airlines.
By the end of October 2006, all three of the major unions representing the pilots,[10] flight attendants,[11] and mechanics[12] reached tentative agreements that still must be approved by the membership. On November 27, 2006, the three unions announced that their membership had ratified the new agreements.
In December 2006, Northwest Airlines said it may purchase Mesaba Airlines from current owner MAIR Holdings and operate it as a wholly owned subsidiary. Tentative agreement to the sale were made; however, the merger could not have been approved without going through bankruptcy board proceedings and approvals of regulators and various interest groups.
On April 24, 2007, Mesaba Airlines emerged from bankruptcy protection and was officially acquired by Northwest Airlines


Now for Compass's creation

Compass Airlines was formed as a result of a contract dispute between Northwest Airlines and its pilots union, the Airline Pilots Association (ALPA). The Northwest Airlines pilot group was asked to give relief on a section of their collective bargaining agreement governing "scope" which protects pilot jobs by ensuring that an airline's customers are flown by the employees of that airline. The pilots eventually agreed to a concession on the scope of their contract allowing a limited number of 76 seat aircraft to be flown by outsourced pilots working for a subcontractor regional airline. In exchange for their concession the Northwest Airlines pilots demanded in return that the pilots of these new aircraft would eventually "flow-up" into mainline pilot jobs at Northwest Airlines, and that Northwest Airlines pilots would retain the ability to "flow-down" into the newly subcontracted pilot jobs in the event that Northwest Airlines were to furlough the mainline pilots.


Now Eagle could end up like Compass but I still doubt it, when the company openly says they want to get rid of Eagle why wouldn't they now?


Either way good history lesson for you

 

TSA and CHQ came with the TWA acquisition in 2001.

 

BizEX?? The point is I don't think AMR cares who flys for them anymore.. Good luck Eagle. I gave 6 years to Eagle/WW in the late 90's. LAX Saab was the one of the best times i had flying!

 

FLy728, I still do not see any real point to your post. You need to also remember, that AMR is in ch11 court, not American Airlines, it is American Airlines and American Eagle. That means the judge has an equal job to both airlines. Saying that the judge can sell out Eagle flying to the lowest bidder, is like saying the judge could as easily say all domestic AA flying should be code shared to J6. This judge has to basically see both companies almost equally, as they make up two halves of AMR corp. I think Compass is the closest thing to Eagle out there. However in the big picture this is seriously uncharted waters, since AMR put all the eggs in this self owned basket, and now in court they will need to claim they suddenly want to apply one rules to their flying, but not the same to the flying they pay for to do the same thing,!! yet fully own and recently tried to steal the planes from on paper.....this is on top of the ALPA lawyers playing my card in the court.

 

You do make a good argument and your right my post isnt totally applicable more or less the point is that NWA airlink was only a couple airlines with Mesaba being the majority and I gaurantee they would have endured the same fleet reductions if they were owned by NWA at the time, making it pretty similar to AMR and airlines will do whatever it takes to bring costs down, including starting new airlines, cutting flying down from their own house to get cheaper feed, etc. Also it was a little history lesson you should be aware of. The judge does get requests to do things from AMR, which he then evaluates, but they have openly said they want to rid themselves of Eagle, and diversify/ get cheaper feed. Again though they could go the way of Compass but like I have said before they are in BK to cut costs not acquire new airplanes for Eagle, they will let others bid for the flying and acquire planes themselves. Obviously the fleet renewal is new airplanes but they cant really bid out A320s and 737s to cheaper feed...

 

You could also say that now Eagles cost disadvantage will disappear since they will be restructured in the BK, so there is now less pressure to outsource.

 

Hey that is a very good possibility as well, hopefully thats the case but I just have a gut feeling that it wont totally go that way. Regardless I still think there will be atleast some shrinking unfortunately. Good luck though guys, hopefully it works out.

 

what are eagle's cost disavantages?

 

It's the high payroll.

When AMR was going to divest Eagle, all they really had was a staffing company. They couldn't do it because to the any shareholder they'd be worth $0 without airplanes since AMR was going to keep the planes. DL figured it out first that it was better to own the planes and lease them back to its regional partners. It's super control over your contracts.

IMO AMR wanted to sell Eagle, hence the push for a contract. When the pilots said no, well, here Eagle is dragged into BK. Same thing happened to OH. Even though the pilot costs were the highest, OH was still making money. DL just made it look like they were losing money. Look at the results. No one wanted to buy OH and now their ship is slowly sinking. Eagle's in the same boat. DL trimmed the fat off of their books by parking a ton of their 50 seaters and getting rid of their ATRs. Results? Pilots on the street.

How many 50 seaters or <, including the ATRs, will be trimmed? How many of the ones that don't get trimmed get leased out to the highest bidder, which includes a AA FFD contract? How can AE compete when other regionals will pick up the flying for a loss just to have the contract? AE only has AA for flying. Good luck trying to pick up other flying at AA or anywhere else in the US. It's a cut throat business. Ask the YV pilots about PSA trying to undercut them to take their 900 flying and they're both ALPA carriers. Overseas? Maybe, but the US regionals attempting overseas flying hasn't been too successful. Speculation at its best, which one can only do at this point.

Just my .02!

 

fair 2 cents worth.