Yes
Fact: Delta is currently absorbing some rj feed into their mainline operation.
Fact: No sign of other carriers following suit, but Delta has lead the industry by about 2 years in the past. ie: Delta NW merger, pension removal for healthy fixed% contribution, and Delta was first with major union gains which allowed United to follow suit.

The point of my posts is to explain that there is a certain level of career earning that is required to get people to be pilots. When you start tying that number to airplane seats (picture at an extreme a corporate jet with 2 pilots and 2 passngers... at that seat capacity my pay rate would be $44.65/hr per passenger... $6250/hr per passenger if you could sustain that pay per seat on a 140 seat plane... see how ridiculous the pay per seat idea gets on aircraft with less and less seats? But I would NEED to be paid that "seat rate" on that airplane to make my present living on a 2 passenger jet), particularly at the small jet level, the airlines cannot meet the minimum career expectations any longer with aircarft size/seat-based pay, and it would cost exorbitant money to pay new regional FOs $60 to fly a CJ200 or ERJ. If they want to keep a few of those for a handful of markets, fine, but the crews on that handful of remaining 50 seaters should be paid a premium per-seat to do it, just like more than half of RJ high seniority captains are today at comapanies like XJT and EGL.

So when regionals attempt to get pilots to bite on crap contracts with new planes or refleeting or whatever, it is stupid to think they would choose any other business option. They HAVE to get new larger fleets to deal with pilot staffing availability and to move the lift economically without paying a small jet per-seat premium to 50 seat pilots.

The point is the RJ pay system is more screwed up and unsustainable with current equipment than mainline pay. Because we have pilots earning a lesser living in pure dollars while being paid more (per unit... per seat... not total actual pay) to move less people. That is the definition of inefficiency. They're trying to make their mess less inefficient with concessionary contracts, and continue those concessions into large RJs where there should be NO CONCESSIONS, because they (management) recapture their desired efficiencies with more seats per aircraft to gain revenue and pay us.

You are right. I wonder though, if your per seat pay is closer if you use early 2000 mainline pay scales. I think their Quid pro quo contracts are younger due to BK. Also do you think it would work well if AAG offered Eagle the 12/4 caps with American seniority numbers, and offered any current pilot a 50 % seniority gain at American? That would help the balance the books over night.
I.e. a 16 year eagle captain could move to year 8 American FO pay scale.

I prefer to not reference 15 year old pay scales. Any number of solutions are possible at Eagle. Certainly better solutions than what was offered. I am not an expert on Eagle issues, just know that the root problems management has on their plate are the same everywhere, and the solutions should hopefully end up looking similar everywhere. They have to somehow get pilots to show up (good career expectations) and then pay them to keep showing up (career delivery). It's really simple.

And there should never be 4 year pay caps anywhere. Ever.

;) got ya. I did mean a compressed four year scale though.

That's close to what it is now. FO top pay at my company is $47 vs $108 for captains. Both scales have FO's at around 40% of captain pay.

Four year pay caps are not the problem, APC quotes mesa 7 year at 36$ an hour and 8 years at 37$ an hour. You could go to Endeavor and get 37$ at four years. What needs to change is the damn pay, year 1 40$ and year 4 cap at 50$ for FO. In fact it would be better to have a 4 year cap with decent pay in this situation, it wouldn't take as long to get there.

All true, I think the real problem with that way of doing things is that there is some percentage of pilots who will not ever come back. Either they won't or can't start over again. You lose some percentage of pilots forever. I would be curious to know what all the comair peeps ended up doing, how many actually came back to aviation.

The single most over looked detail is simple and often overlooked- Where does the money to pay properly come from?

It comes from mother DAL and father UAL and the mistress AAL. We love to hate regional management and they deserve 99% of it however, they bid their routes based on a specific labor cost. If we exceed that then our companies go TU. Along with our jobs. That is basic business.

This is the natural ebb and flow of capitalism. Once we understand the supply and demand curve we can see how the RJ operators are just the pool boys for their respective Legacies. At their mercy. Be smart enough to direct the "Pay hate" at it's source.

Don't misunderstand me, I dislike management as much as the next guy and feel like we are grossly underpaid but I am also well aware that there is too much competition in our industry. A few have become too expensive and they will fall by the way side. This might help to find the balance in this industry. Look how long it took to shut down Comair. Size doesn't matter. If the company is too expensive it will cease to exist.

The interesting thing is the 1500hr rule and 117. Today isn't as simple as it used to be due to these barriers to entry for new pilots. Predictions are pure speculation at this point but the companies that will survive the storm in my opinion, will be the Regionals without 50 seaters and a relatively junior (inexpensive) pilot group.

The industry needs re fleeted and that is one step in mitigating the "shortage" The situation may force mainline to accelerate the rate at which they park uneconomical aircraft such as the 135/145s/200s etc.

Hopefully, as we go through this "capitalistic valley" the legacy's will take back the flying (at a respectable pay rate for the pilots) or the remaining companies will bid more fat in their contracts. One way or another, it will get worse before it gets better. IMO

Sounds like Mesa. Spent 3 years there, hated it so bad I made a lateral move. Looked like the best plan at the time. Just like it does now. Hate that company.