here's to hoping you are right. I am just saying that they can out lawyer labor and out lobby them as well. labor has hung its hat on the legal process for years and lost big. good old fashioned spinal fortitude is the only real weapon left. my bet is they try the lawyer promises of good times once again. Too easy to take the narcotics of letting the union do it line.

 

While I respectfully disagree with you, I understand your reason for feeling the way you do. Post 9-11 Bankruptcy's really, really hurt this industry. I hope we can reverse the trend.

 

Having read this entire thread... the one thing I've yet to see anyone talk about is the proposed legislation to hold mainline carriers liable for they regionals the contract out.

If this happens, I'm guessing that either 1.) the regionals will get dumped and be on their own or 2.) the mainline carriers will fold in or start their own 50-70 seat operations with their own pilots. Am I crazy here? Seems that if this proposal comes to fruition, that the regionals couldn't afford to compete in the 100 seat market with the mainlines. Or they would just be run out of business...

 

A very good point. Something else to think about. Look at DAL shedding WO regionals left and right.

 

Most 'regionals' are now Fee For Departure airlines with guaranteed profit margins. If that were changed to simple code shares I would imagine the legal firms these airlines employ will find ways around that liability. Hard to say. Anyway, it is interesting.

I think though that the pilots will have more leverage next time around due not to a shortage per se, but to the fact that there will be more movement in the industry.

Finally, the fact that once hiring does pick up, the regionals will be picked over badly and I think there will be a shortage at the regional level. Nobody is getting pilot licenses anymore. Of course, that can change, but enrollments at places like UND and ERAU and FlightSafety are way, way down over where they used to be.

 

I don't see how not actually owning the airline would insulate Delta from liability. All the contractor regionals still fly the Delta banner and all carry Delta passengers.

 

My point to my statements are simple. Scope is not industry wide at 76 seats. Contractors have, are, and will in the future, operate more seats. There's very little beyond tepid determination that it won't happen.

SkyWest still flies a few pro rata routes in their system, for sure with Delta, and I'm not sure about UAL any more. They operate as a code share with AirTran. Republic is a whole 'nother can of worms.

The biggest three players going forward will be CAL/UAL, DAL, and SKW. I suspect when 77-125 seat planes are proposed, that CAL will be quite imaginative with proposals to the union about how many new A350's/B787 they can get pilots into. I can tell you from first hand experience on the SKW side that they have actively planned for 100+ seat planes.

History has proven this formula effective. Not today, maybe not tomorrow, but in the future.

100-125 seats in 10-20 years.
150 seats in 20-30 years.

Single pilot ops in 30-40 years.

 

The junior contractor pilots, and the junior major pilots, probably want this the most. What's in it for the people who give speeches to banquet halls full of shareholders?

Bottom line... it won't be cheaper, or you'd have that already. So.... why would they want to spend more, to become less competitive with the guys across town already hauling 86 seats around for $20/hr starting pay?

Keep dreaming and hoping.

 

Highly doubt any of that will happen, but even if it does, that will be the end of career opportunities for the regionals most of all. The legacies will still have their widebodies and large narrowbodies. But the regionals, if what you predict [wish] actually happens, will merely be flying airplanes twice as large for half as much as they themselves made (adjusted for inflation with all benefits and work rules thrown in) from the peak contracts of the ACA/Comair/etc era from under 10 years ago.

The regionals simply will no longer be getting these free fuel guaranteed profit margin glory days that they used to. We are seeing the last of those being inked with visibile expirations as we speak. Done. Once Republic is weened off their massive foundation of guaranteed money they will go the way of Indy Air, guaranteed.

At the pilot level there will be no more SJS because even the horniest, frosted hair, inverted epaulette wearing, backpack toting, iPod listening, mirrored Oakley wearing, Doc Martin stomping, shirtless volleyball playing, "I fly for [MainLine] proclaiming fanboy will have no choice but to realize, before the first flight lesson, that it will never pay squat, there will be no light at the end of the tunnel, and there will never, ever, ever, under any realistic circumstance, ever be "Paris, First Class, International" waiting for him/her at the end of the long, dark tunnel. Think pilot recruitment numbers are low now? Wait until there is essentially no mainline to go to, or even if there is, only after 15-20+ years at a regional first. Regional pay won't come up at all (all "raises" will still put them further and further behind the year 2000ish contracts) because at the core, RFP contracting, however it is structured, guarantees the decimation of those who do it.

In the past young buck pilots did it for the brass ring at the end, and of course some ended up staying as lifers for various reasons (many of which are some of the finest pilots in the country despite the "couldn't get hired" stereotypes). Even the so called "super regionals" are a joke because all it takes is one existing, or yet to be created, regional to make a lower bid, to bring down the house of cards by shaking it's foundation.

As for single pilot airliners, again I doubt that. We will see robot planes first IMHO, and even that will take a VERY long time. Not only from a cost effective standpoint, but from a liability standpoint. Without a pilot saying at 9900 feet on the descent "nice sunset" and then going off the end of the runway 20 minutes later, a robot plane will be 100% to blame and will bring a storm of emotional lawsuits even the most egregious pilot error NTSB ruling ever could. And sorry, but paying for an FO or not is simply not going to be a make or break function regardless of the price of technology.

In any case, it seems like you are not only predicting, but cheering for ever increasing regional/outsourced flying. Why? Fly a plane twice as big for 10. maybe 20 bucks more? Only to lose it in concessions/inflation before the end of the same contract that brought it to you? That's hardly career progression or even protection.

Mainline scope is your best friend and greatest hope. You can realize it now or later of course. The same goes for mainline pilots.

 

Ya, I've gotten a few responses like yours. Nowhere did I say it was a good thing, bad thing, wish it did (or did not) happen, etc... just my thoughts.

I don't work for a regional airline. I don't own stock in one.

My biggest fear is the exportation offshore of the regional model, as SkW / ASA did with Mekong in Vietnam. I see that disease spreading. There's no scope to even slow the disease. I foresee similar operations flying A330's for glorified regional pay. Anybody care to bet against this?

Money talks, and nobody flies as cheap as a US regional pilot. That's a fact. [edit: delete my unfounded rumor]