Thats exactly the point. By not owning them, they aren't liable. As evident by the Colgan case, the general public thought they were flying on a Continental Flight, with CAL pilots, and CAL standards.

If this proposal becomes law, then mainline carriers will be liable for the regionals they contract. If I buy a Delta ticket, and my brand X regional crashes, my family can sue Delta (and I would haunt them from my grave, just making a point). So that only leaves three options...

1.) continue to roll the dice and operate as-is, and hope to not be sued when the next regional accident happens (or pay out, which sad to say may be cheaper)
2.) fold said regional into the company, under one seniority list, under the same training/hiring standards as the rest (probably way to expensive)
3.) completely get out of the regional game and let them operate on their own. Maybe code share, but not allow them to paint your name on the side.

 

Of course. I agree almost completely with what you said. My opinion, however, remains the same.

 

I disagree with this. In the current model at Delta, with 12000 pilots, if only 8000 pilots were then needed tomorrow, because there were no more FO's, FE's, SO's, etc, then I'd conservatively estimate that the cost for salary, health insurance, sim training, hotels, etc, is maybe $150,000/year, per crew member, in today dollars?

4000 less bodies times $150,000 = $600,000,000 PER YEAR, at just one airline. Yes, that will get somebody's attention as the technology because readily available.

 

My point was that they are starting to get the aircraft of their balance sheets. It's the beginning of shedding them. I wasn't stating that selling them will free them from liability if the law is changed, but as of right now it does. A big part of this is the DOT 3 hr rule IMO.

 

You are completely off the mark. Read the Major threads about the CAL and UAL. I fly wide-bodies and EVERYONE that I have flown with is in favor of CAL's scope so don't hold your breath. This JCBA is once in a lifetime chance to bring the narrow body flying back the the trunk airline and both the UAL and CAL pilot group will vote for 50 seat scope. The only question is what to do about the 50 + 1 seat aircraft currently in the UAL system.

 

So how many A/C are we talking about here? 4000 pilots is what, 260 or so planes, give or take? For every additional million a single airplane costs for this "technology" we're talking 260 million. Odds are a single pilot plane would cost many, many millions more than a dual pilot version. Likely tens or hundreds of Billions more (plus interest, since no one really buys anything anymore...even when they "pay cash" it's usually some kind of lease back) even assuming it could get certified. Going from 2 pilots down to one is NOT the same as going from 3 down to two. Today's FO is simply nowhere near as replaceable as yesterday's FE, or the day before yesterday's "radioman" or "navigator". Today's FO is there precicely as redundency. Two pilots is still a massive CRM force multiplier to safety. Single pilot ops at the airliner level. Basically it would be a fully certifiable drone that they install a single seat in to get the public used to it. But a drone nonetheless.

It would need full remote control or internal takeover systems with so much top to bottom redundancy it would be insane. We're not talking a Predator here, paid for with ulimited government dollars with, despite all it's technology, dispatch reliability/crash rates that aren't even in the universe of acceptability for part 121, etc.

I see the expense on that as astronomical. This would not be the same as the Biz Jets going single pilot (something only a few less than ultra top of the line ones have managed to do...a great deal of which still end up with 2 pilots up front).

As for the rest of it I see what you're saying now. I don't agree that it will happen like you say it likely will though, but I see why you come to that conclusion. Never underestimate greed, arrogance and shortsightedness on either end of the dichotomy I guess. Not that it's not possible, just that if it happened it would rapidly consume those on the "top" who let it as well as those on the "bottom" who did it as well, and would do both very, very quickly and in an unsustainable way.

 

I see where you are going. It looks like Republic is heading in the right direction then. It is unbelievable that the airlines just gave up the lions share of the domestic US market. Could they really not make money flying domestically or did regional outsourcing blow up in their face? They essentially funded the very companies that will soon be their competitors. I thought airlines were in the business of flying people for money. I guess all those warnings of codesharing to circumvent scope were true.

 

Except many Legacy contracts prohibit exactly what you stated. Bypassing scope via Codeshare is not allowed.

Plus they aren't just giving up a lions share of the domestic feed. Domestic is pretty much all I do on the A320. Sure there is some international vacation destinations tossed in, but it's allow all domestic. That's not including what the DC9, M88, 737, 757, & 767 do.

DAL in particular is simply taking liabilities off their balance sheet, & in return for the sale of these regionals are getting contracts more in DALs favor. Less risk for DAL, more risk for the regional.

 

You are very misinformed.

Airlines are in the business of creating executive bonuses and large compensation packages for upper management. Flying people is just a byproduct.

 

Don't get me wrong, I don't want this to happen either, but how do you suppose the genie is put back in the bottle? While the tone of my post is accusatory, and I apologize for that, how can mainline pilots draw a line in the sand when half of their flying is already outsourced? You cannot effectively strike. Large RJ's already mirror the domestic routes. There would be little disruption in service to passengers or the execs pocketbook.
I know what this means for the business, and I do not like it, but no union is strong enough to stop it. for now anyway