Your story keeps changing. First it was "unions can't force a merger". Then it was "well they can if it is negotiated, but Delta management wasn't going to go for it". Now it is "well DALPA was willing to give it a shot if there was a prenup". Wow....You flipped flopped more than our commander in chief just in one page of posts.

 

It appears in the zeal to protect so called brand or what ever against maybe a handful of so called undesirables out of thousands, ALPA and mainline pilots worked against themselves and regional pilots to bring their flying back rather then a staple after a buyout. If ALPA, DALPA and Comair would have enforced a staple you would have had more of your fling back sooner. Less ability to whipsaw regionals.

 

I think you guys are missing what sailing is saying, he's saying management didn't want the merger, thus ALPA didn't want the merger. If this wasn't the case, the issue would have gone to the NMB, or a court dealing with labor law.

 

The flying was not going to be moved to the mainline. DALPA tried to show the company the 200 and 700 could operate at the mainline. Once they ran their own economic numbers even DALPA could not come close to showing we could operate the aircraft and be competitive.

 

Here is where sailingfun and I can partially agree. The fact is, it would be very expensive to bring the RJ flying in house. Three problems with it.

1. It is expensive to the company, and thus costs the union a lot of negotiating capital which comes out of the more senior mainline pilots and probably results in a NO vote at the mainline.

2. As was shown in RJDC lawsuit depositions with USAirways MEC members, the mainline gets a "bargaining credit" for helping management with keeping regional feed costs low. The less the company has to pay for this regional feed, the more the mainline MEC gets to negotiate for in the total size of the pie....

3. If the mainline pays a lot for the RJ feed, guess what happens next? There is no longer a limit on the number of 90 seaters that the company can use, and they are very cheap now. Most domestic flying now goes to this cheap 90 seat flying and the only high paid jobs are the wide body jobs for international and certain trans cons. Over all, it is a net loss for the mainline group.

I doubt Sailingfun will acknowledge any of this, but this is the main reason mainline/ALPA national doesn't really push for it.

There is one other reason that doesn't involve economics....There is a very prevalent belief within DALPA/ALPA/Mainline groups that regional pilots aren't as good. That second class status combined with the above economics guarantee that ALPA will never change the current system.

 

Just because I'm better than you doesn't make me better than all of you.

 

Very true, however, it isn't the pilot costs that are the driver of this. It is all the associated costs of operating the aircraft from flight attendants, to dispatchers and integrating the aircraft with the mainline dispatching system. That's where the higher costs come in, we just hold the keys for the scope so to speak.

That's the beauty of flying your own code.

Actually, quite the opposite is true now. Until recently the above was true, but now DL has those 717's and UA is actively working on filling the 100 seat gap. We have over 13,000 pilots in the pool on airline apps for DL and UA to pull from. The regionals simply can't keep up.

In UA's scope, though we increased the gauge, the overall UAX operation will shrink by 200+ airframes, block hour limits tightened and go off of mainline narrow-body block hours only. In fact, management is pretty close/or at the limit allowed for in our scope clause. There are over 100 former UA/CO 737-500's sitting in the dessert that the company is looking to possibly bring back.

Yeah, I've flown with some tools that feel this way about regional pilots. Most of them have been scabs and couldn't get a job anywhere else so they stole one. I quickly point out that doing hub-turns in a CRJ is a lot more difficult than doing a transcon in 757.

Throw in an app and come on over JB, the water is nice

 

Good points from everyone! With all that's been said then how can mainline pilots "take their flying back" or bring flying back to mainline? The purpose of regionals is the cost savings or would it be better stated to say take "some" of our flying back?

 

What we are seeing in today's environment is a greater number of 50 seaters being parked vs. 70/76 seaters being brought in to service. Block hours are slowly being transferred from the regionals back to the mainlines. This can be seen by some of the routes have been flown by regionals and are now being flown at mainline. An example for UA is DEN-MSP and EWR-ATL. Also, if you look at our 737 or A319/320 pairings you'll see more overnights in cities like ROC, BUF, MDT, etc just to name a few. I think majors will continue this "thinning" of the regionals as opposed to buying them.

 

THANKG GOD!!!!!!!! Because the world needs beer cans.

Good, MOSTLY. Because the larger gage equipment is MORE OF A THREAT TO THE MAINLINE/NARROW BODY JOB. But yeah, the reduction in airframes at the regional level was one of the BEST THINGS TO HAPPEN in DAL's/UCH's CBA's. Hopefully the trend continues.

And with the way pilots b1tch, it can be the epitome of irony;

"This is B.S. man, these small cities and 3-4 leg days should be flown by the RJ guys"

Those of us with a clue get it, but others don't. It's funny when you hear it.

As mentioned above, hopefully the momentum keeps up. As with DAL's previous PWA and it's scope language, they stay the pace car going forward next year.