A good article on the future of mainline/regional scope:

Will US mainline pilots cede more ground to regional airlines?

winglet

p.s. I don't agree with many of the conclusions in this article, but the author makes some valid points. There is also some good data and information regarding how anti-labor experts think. Knowledge is power!

 

An excellent article by someone who really did his homework. "Scope liberalization to wrest gain for mainline pilots." He also pointed out that regional pilot pay was sacrificed to cross subsidize mainline pilot pay and benefits. A classic example is UAL. Before bankruptcy, I knew one UAL B747 CA who was making over $330,000 a year flying maybe one trip every other month. During the same time period, a regional pilot first year pay was less than $17/hr.

Current structure as it exists is unhealthy and has produced an unintended consequences for mainline pilots. I believe only way we can regain some semblance of honor and respect in this industry is to stop giving up scope and negotiate with the management for pilot integration for all branded flying. With the gap between the regional flying cost and that of mainline flying narrowing, mainline carriers needs to carve out a different path for domestic flying, and it would be in the best interest of current pilots to negotiate for total integration of branded flying under one list. A good example is Lufthansa. All Lufthansa pilots are under one seniority list regardless of whether you fly a CRJ900 or a B777.

 

YouTube - Hitler gets angry with pilots for flying over airport This should stop you worrying about scope and get a good laugh!! enjoy... AA and Cal. will hopefully hold on to scope for dear life and not follow Ual, US and Dal.

 

HaHaHa. This is really hilarious. We should show this during recurrent training!

 

There you go. He hit the nail on the head.

 

It kinda makes one wonder if Mainline will negotiate rates for "regional" aircraft types. I think this would be a good move in the right direction.

 

Swelbar's thoughts are written out in their entirety in the "scope scope scope" thread in the majors forum. In the first couple of pages, I believe. Read that and my post disecting it before you jump to conclusions that this guy is on anything but managements side. This guy also is close friends with Glenn Tilton. That should tell you where his loyalties lie.

 

It's one thing for a legacy airline/legacy NC to negotiate a "regional" rate into their CBA or an LOA.

It's an ENTIRELY different thing to have said airline acquire those "regional" aircraft so they can be flown by said legacy pilots.

 

No doubt. He wrote that pilots must accept lower payrates, benefits and work rules for domestic flying with which I TOTALLY disagree.

Having said that he does bring out some accurate points regarding circumstances that led to our current demise of pilot profession.

 

He's on the investor's side which happens to be management's side too. I'm against the degradation of pay, benefits and work rules too, but that's part of the problem when thousands of pilot are competing with each other for jobs. The solution from the mainline pilots is for all the regional pilots to quit and find office jobs. Not only will this not work because not too many pilots are going to give up their jobs for you, but even if they did, there'd be a few thousand more standing in line to take over.

Thanks for being honest and agreeing with me about the accurate points. This is exactly what I meant.