JamesNoBrakes

No, it's spot on. What you are talking about may dictate the SIZE of the workforce, but compensation is what it is due to seniority.

JamesNoBrakes

If he's not qualified to fly one metal tube at 35K and 400kts, he's not qualified to fly any other tube doing the same thing. To the FAA, there is no difference at all between a "regional" and a "major", they are just "airlines". To pilots and the employees, there is this false distinction and we the people (public) have allowed them to plaster the major-airline's name on the side and get all the benefit with none of the trouble.

NineGturn

Good points but I think flynavyj was only trying to refer to the competitiveness of an individual with a record. Lower pay generally attracts fewer applicants so the pool of available selection is smaller and the criteria for selection is less.

Or it could be that a pilot developed a history of problems while working for his current airline (be it mainline or regional) that while not severe enough to get him fired may make it more difficult to job hunt.

Either way, with or without seniority systems such a pilot would have a hard time changing jobs. Such a pilot who may have an unfortunate record probably was more hire-able earlier in his career with less experience.

NineGturn

The corruption lies in the abuse of the system by management and mainline unions hiring policies to create a forced B scale system that pilots must pass through to get to the mainline. Seniority once worked back in the old days when regionals didn't exist and mainlines lasted a long time without mergers and layoffs. Back then a low time pilot could get picked up at a mainline in his 20s and reasonably expect to spend his career there.

When I was starting out it was generally accepted that if you didn't get hired at an airline before age 30 it was too late and that you would plan stay at one airline until retirement. Back then there were no regionals...only "the commuters" that operated 15 and 19 seat turboprops under FAR 135 scheduled.

The corruption lies in the exploitation of propaganda that such a system protects pilots when in fact it's designed to keep them under management and union control.

Of course I agree that the regionals are the problem. My argument is that regional airlines couldn't even exist as they are without the unions and seniority system. The business model would be impossible to implement without the control that seniority gives management over labor.

You must only kill seniority at the regional level really to kill the business model.

Steve McCroskey

I totally agree with that statement. I was referencing the fact that the seniority system is not corrupt within a certain company as far as dictating pilot pay and a merit based system within an airline would be corrupt. It would be nice to jump-ship and maintain seniority but that would never happen. Maybe if they kept you at the same payscale as you were before but forced you to the bottom of the list. But that will never happen unless the majors start going crazy trying to steal pilots from the other majors

NineGturn

Hey you never know... if it gets bad enough. But you're right, probably couldn't happen any time soon with the majors.

But I'm thinking if the regionals start going crazy and trying to steal pilots from other regionals. You are beginning to see that with the Trans States CQFO and the signing bonuses but that's just the beginning. Trans States and other airlines used to hire DECs back in the mid 90s when demand exceeded training capacity. Now demand is exceeding supply as well.

A lot of people say the regionals can't afford it but that's not true...unlike just about any other industry their margins are in fact dictated by their costs...there is no other way they could operate with such razor thin margins. The regionals exist at the beck and call of the majors but pretend to be operating independently under free market competition.

The majors can still save money on regionals even if the B scale (regional) wages go up significantly because they still get to reset those pilots to zero when they jump over to their seniority lists...(a 20 year captain at age 60 is far cheaper than a 20 year captain at age 50).

The other possibility is that regionals go away but the more I think about it the more I think it less likely even if wages went up significantly.

My whole argument is that there is no economic reason why regional pilots should get paid so little. People will tell you because the airlines can't afford to operate those smaller planes if they have to pay their pilots more but that's nonsense. Regional jets are highly efficient in certain markets and the profit margins are there. It's all about what mainline wants to do with these planes. The only reason regional pilots get paid so little is because of the lack of normal free market labor forces caused by the existence of seniority rules unofficially enforced by the majors and the "airline culture" that pilots cling to.

uboatdriver

I got to thinking about what would happen at a regional if they eliminated seniority (specifically for upgrades). They could hire street captains at first year pay and keep all the senior first officers on f/o pay. Sounds crazy, but it's what I would do if I didn't have to upgrade based on seniority. Not only that, I've seen something similar: New hires recruited to a high paid position while current employees are allowed to stay, albeit in a lower paid position.

NineGturn

If that were to happen the free market would come into play and people would jump ship to the next regional at equal or better pay and their original airline's training costs would skyrocket.

I think it's difficult for pilots to grasp this concept because they are so used to being controlled they don't understand what real freedom would be like. Basically it would mean you wouldn't have to put up with that crap like you do now.

The bottom line is that if you suddenly had control over your own destiny, the airlines would have to compete for your services against each other, something they don't have to do now. If they didn't compete, no one would work there.

outaluckagain

The problem with what you are saying is that the regionals aren't going away any time soon. The poverty level starting wages need to be raised...enough said.

MaxQ

Some thoughts, some perhaps even with some validity.

One of the areas that I believe "we" (meaning us hourly wage worker bees of the flying business) are getting wrong is the idea of eliminating a segment of the industry rather than get it back to where it was.

Regional airlines didn't used to be considered a deadend job and viewed with disdain by their peers. Regional airlines used to be named North Central, Allegheny, Ozark, Southern,Frontier etc. These were career jobs that paid well, and any pilot employed by them was viewed with respect by his peers. At the time of deregulation they were flying 50 seat Convairs and F-27's and 80+ to 100+ seat DC-9's and maybe some BAC-111's. The commuters were flying B-99's and Metros and Nord 262's and Shorts 330's etc. (some navajos..even a twin beech or two). With deregulation the regionals decided to expand and become trunk airlines. Many commuters filled the void vacated by the regionals.
1. The DOT/FAA in the new era of being regulatory friendly to large corporations, (doing their bidding as opposed to protecting the public good), decides to allow an airline to be marketed as a different entity than what they were. Welcome "American Eagle".."United Express"... "Delta Connection"...whomever. This was a huge philosophical shift from mere code sharing. While not part of the airline deregulation act, it was part and parcel of the tetonic revolution that was just starting in the United States and quickly spread to other industrialized democracies.Every working person has felt the profound effects of this seachange in how workers are viewed..(even by fellow workers).. and compensated.

What do we have now: the Commuters are now the Regionals. The markets served by the Commuters often just lost service.
The Commuters, doing the work of the former regionals(and assuming their moniker)pay less when adjusted for inflation that the commuters of old.

Our problem isn't that there are regionals. Our problem is that they don't begin to pay, or command the respect, that a regional airline of pre deregulation did.

Rather than trying to fit a saddle upon a cow (in the manner of having the majors add even more aircraft types/complexities/etc to their certificates), perhaps our efforts should be in making the present day regionals the quality workplace that a regional once was.