What if...
 

What if there was no scope and all flying (including widebody) was farmed out to regional/subcontractor airlines? I'm playing devil's advocate here, mostly. Would this eliminate the carrot that is dangled in order to keep regional pay low? You can't make all the pilots work for $20/hr if there isn't a light at the end of the tunnel. Honestly, I don't think it would be good for the industry, but I do think a lot of regional pilots put up with the problems because they think their big break is just around the corner. If you can't improve working conditions, why not accelerate the race to the bottom? Eventually, there really will be a pilot shortage. I know, it wouldn't work like that, and would probably be an excuse to introduce some truly career killing changes in the industry. Just thinking out loud.

If you already admit you know it wouldn't work like that, why did you post it? ;)

I suspect it would backfire, but who knows. I believe the reason the majority of pilots go to and stay in the regionals is that they are an almost mandatory internship for the better paying jobs at majors/lccs. That carrot is extremely powerful. So, how do we get rid of the power the carrot has over pilots?

Most pilots move on from the regionals. There are about 3x's as many major/lcc/legacy jobs in the states than regional jobs.

For example, from my newhire class at 9E 11 years ago, there are only 2 left still there.

I thought it was much more evenly split, but that aside, there's also part 125/charter, military, 91K, etc. Add up all the guys getting turbine PIC with aspirations of being major airline captains and it's probably more than there are (or will ever be) jobs for...

Yep! I thought it was closer, too... however, sulkair totalled it all up.

It's about 60,000 major/lcc/legacy jobs vs. just shy of 20,000 regional jobs.

http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/ma...rs-glance.html

http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/re...es-glance.html

3x is a nice number, but the upgrade times at many regionals suggest there are other factors at play. There aren't actually that many lifers, are there? How many of those 9 that left moved on to a significantly better pilot job? For everyone's sake, I hope you're right.

Your scenario is not that far fetched from a future reality. Pilots at regionals have overwhelmingly showed they are willing to put up with low pay and the like while pilots at majors have overwhelmingly showed their willingness to sell scope for personal enrichment.

In ten years, I predict the regional airlines will fly approximately 65% of all airline passengers in the US. There will be mass regional consolidation. Upgrade times will be in excess of 10 years at the regionals hence the deep desire to see pay scales at 12/4, what other reason is there for 12/4?

I'm not really sure that's an accurate statement. Since this thread is all about numbers, we'll pull some from the APC main page, OF COURSE, not 100% accurate, but close enough;

XJT 4600+ pilots
RAH 3000 pilots
Envoy 2600+ pilots.

Public school math says that's about 10K+ pilots, or roughly over half of the number of regional pilots per this thread and the referenced numbers.

ALL three of those groups voted NO to putting up with lower pay. Whether the sheer hourly amount, or the other ways of soft time, health care premium, DC plan, OJI banks, what have you.

The Pinndeavor scenario is a little hard to pin down. Because, when a company goes into a forced BK to extract cost reductions, what ELSE would they have done? I't NOT really that different than the legacies during their BK's in that regard.

So again, "overwhelmingly" is a bit a misused term to express what you're trying to say.

But total up Pinndeavor, PSA, and PDT. Not really close.

Pre 9/11, this was proven time and time again. On the UAL mid-term ESOP, then contract 2000. As well as NWA, and DAL contract 2001. Although there WERE mainline pilots that DID see the potential of "Pandora's Box" being opened, they were in a minority.

However, 80kts may (or may NOT) agree with this, as I've discussed it with him before. The 50 seaters getting parked IS A GOOD THING. At the higher oil prices, they've become too expensive to operate as compared to the pre 9/11 era, they're getting older and more costly from a MX perspective, passengers HATE them, and the various fleet rationalizations at the merged carriers panning out of larger gage/mainline equipment serving certain markets again, THANK GOD.

However, as much of a bane to the industry (AND the career) that the 50 seat equipment is, what's the bigger threat to the mainline/narrow body job? A 50 seat airplane, or the 70+ seat capacity equipment that was allowed on the most recent contracts? The '"recapture" of the scope so to speak on the contracts was GOOD coming off the "dark decade"/proliferation of the RJ/BK era, but hopefully the trend continues. Whereas UAL/DAL contracts allow for a certain number of large gage RJ's to be flown as a ratio and the "scope choke", it would be nice to see the future CBA's REDUCE those numbers allowed. IOW, MORE jobs going to mainline and LESS jobs at the outsourced regional feed provider.

Besides the retirement numbers accounting for job, but MORE airframes (even though maybe not the heavy/WB) going to mainline. More mainline pilots flying the equipment, on a mainline seniority list, on a mainline contract.

I think they will go about it a different way, when they are done pillaging the regionals they will go back at the Majors. That is why this job will never pay off for the current generation of pilots, the airlines will never return to the glory days. They did their damage at the Major level after 9/11 and now the regionals have been feeling the wrath the past 5 years. After the regionals fall apart in the next 5 years they will refocus on the Majors. If they are willing to lie, steal and cheat to take pennies from pilots living just above the poverty line why would anyone expect them not to exert these same forces on the top dogs of the industry?

I think what will happen is that Major Airlines will be mainly marketing companies and control the ticket sales. If you look at it, they don't really own anything to begin with. I think there is a business model around simply selling tickets and outsourcing all of the other work to other companies who bid for the job, including flying.

John, you are probably right in the sense that the word overwhelmingly was misused. You do a good job laying out that there are indeed carriers voting no and that's great.

I was looking at this from the context of the last 20 years though. From that perspective, there hasn't been much real gain in regional pilot wealth. I'm not sure who's fault that is.

Thing is though, an airline typically wants labor concessions so as to remain competitive with other airlines. If legacy pilots establish and maintain a certain standard of pay, management has no excuse in negotiations to lower pay in the next contract. In fact, when pay goes up across the board, it just means each carrier adds a few more bucks to each ticket sold with no adverse effects on their market share or position relative to one another. Would United really complain about adding $1.42 to each ticket sold if they knew American and Delta were doing the same? I wonder if salary price fixing is legal...

Pilots only accept bad conditions at the regional level for the major/legacy carrot. 99.9% of regional pilots would refuse concessions once they've made it to the big time, especially in light of what they just put up with for 4-12 years.

As for contracts around 2000, I've heard a lot about how good they were. Something like a 777 Captain making $300+ per hour unadjusted for inflation. Is that true? I appreciate your historical knowledge of the subject, and I'd love to hear more details about how things were then and what we're still fighting 15 years later to get back.

I also wonder whether mainline pilots care about scope. If they aggressively recapture it, management will say, "Okay, but then you're not getting any kind of raise." The pilots already there know they have a job, why would they fight for the regional pilots at their own expense? The 55+ year olds want to pad their retirements, the guys just getting hired now want to make up for lost time, and the middle aged guys in between may or may not care. Of course there will be some compassionate and empathetic towards their regional brothers and sisters, but I question if that's a significant percentage. If it is, is it a majority?

Agreed on that front. I reference in another thread though, pre 9/11 while the legacies were increasing in CBA quality, some of the regionals were as well. Although purely on a relative scale of course. ASA, ACA, COMAIR, AWAC specifically. Mesaba, BIZEX, and Eagle were good (AGAIN, relative) as well. Commutair, for being a 19/B1900 operator had better pay than MESA and Great Lakes, for the equipment type.

Not necessarily true. Post 9/11, regional pilots took concessions ACA, COMAIR, and AWAC.

We hope that's true, I believe it is. But then again, pilots have proven themselves to be selfish "scope is a junior guy's problem, IT'S ALL ABOUT ME AND MY WIDE BODY SEAT!!!!!", as well as a have short memory.

UAL 777 CA on DOS 2000, 270.35/hr. End of the CBA had it gone that far (2003 or 2004), 316.45/hr

DAL 777 CA on DOS, 268.01/hr, 2004 would have seen 319.61/hr

On a relative scale, the better regional CBA's of the late 90's/2000/2001 that were considered "good" (ASA, AWC, ACA, COMAIR) were VERY GOOD compared a short time before. Where when the RJ's were first coming on line, they were STILL doing it at turbo prop wages and turbo prop workrules for a while. It made the RJ job not such a bad place to work, ON A RELATIVE SCALE. Albeit, that was a VERY SHORT window that occurred. One of my previous employers, a CRJ CA could pull 100K simply though CAB work rule manipulation and still have 14 days off. A CRJ FO could pull 50-60. AGAIN, that's the 2000-2001 era. Adjust that for inflation.

In the past, see above. It was historically give up for pay, DB plans that NEVER came to fruition, wide body orders that never arrived, whatever.

One interesting/fantasy land scenario is this; The regional management FINALLY decides to sack up and tell their legacy partners that they simply can't operate on existing agreements, they have to be paid more to provide the regional feed. Now, when the legacy pilots CBA's come up for talks, the legacy management is going to pull the card of "our sourcing costs (regional operators) are going up, costing us more money. THEREFORE, there's less money to give YOU on a new contract".

In typical MBA/airline management fashion and typical pilot mentality, can you see the ramifications of this happening? In other words "because you lowly regional pilots are costing too much you're affecting MY ability to get paid more money yada yada yade....." It's management 101, pit employees against each other.

Again, good points. Hopefully the scope being blown open (although forced via BK) is STILL fresh in the minds of the pilots. And with the standard 50-60% of new hires at legacies being made up of civilian/regional pilots, scope will remain a forefront issue.

Time will tell.

Very well put, John Carr!