TallFlyer

In the next 15 years, there are 30,000 retirements at just the three Legacy carriers alone, a number nearly double the current number of regional pilots. There's no way they're going to up gauge that much.

I'm not saying that every single regional pilot is going to have a seat at mainline, but I'd wager it's going to be a very high percentage.

No current mainline pilot yes, but it wasn't too long ago that Continental first year pay was $33 or something like that.

If the big shots decide they want to fly 76 seat jets and not worry about staffing them they'll soon figure out that they'd staff them forever at $35-40 for the first year, on a mainline list.

Squallrider

To your first point I think mainline will try get relaxed scope to compensate for retirements, which will help their staffing to a large extent, not completely but help.

I agree with your second point except they have to give a huge carrot to current mainline pilots to sign that TA off, I'm not saying it won't happen, it's because of that that we have a regional industry to begin with,

TallFlyer

No way in God's great earth is that going to happen, for two reasons:
1. The mainline ranks are quickly filling with guys who spent the better part of the "Lost Decade" in an RJ, and will quickly vote no on anything that includes any scope giveaways. Yes, management could offer a much larger carrot and maybe get them to consider it, but they've also shown a strong reluctance in offering carrots as of late.
2. Even if I'm wrong and management can get scope relief, where are they going to find the bodies? Even at $35+ an hour? That amount of money, even on a wholly own certificate with a flow, as uncertain as they are, isn't going to be enough to get hordes of new prospective pilots to start working on their ratings.

I'm not so sure about that either. The airplanes already exist, and in many cases are already owned by the mainline carrier. The pilots already exist, they're sitting in the seats already. The raises are already coming, as evidenced by new rates at TSA, offers at RAH (flawed as it was, it was still $40 first year pay). The only piece really missing is what list they're on.

Waitingformins

That's true, but he's saying the need to utilize spoke feed is diminishing, not that it is cheaper to use mainline on an RJ route. He's somewhat staying that the legacys are going to have a larger point to point system, and that model will require less RJ's.

buddies8

Point to point takes away from the hub, they have billions invested in the hub operation. They are not going to change the main operation which is hubbing.

Waitingformins

Same reason Southwest doesn't have RJ feed. Filling larger planes is way more profitable than smaller ones.

If 150 people are going from AtoB through a Hub, is 6 RJ flights cheaper or one direct 737?
He's saying their going to cherry pick more city's parings requiring less hub traffic, combined with the fact that some of the spoke traffic was solely created to fill a hub departure which is no longer needed. That was what he meant by revenue potential.

Waitingformins

Umm yes they are. The 4 towns he listed are already doing that. I.e. MSY-LAX on United Delta and SW. Passed up just about every hub in the country.

iFlyRC

Airlines will replace the F.O. with a ground operator monitoring many flights. CA will have bio sensors. Airlines will move to a single pilot operation. Boeing is already working on it, as is Google and everyone else.

iFlyRC

CRJ 900 is 76-79 seats, 737 is around 140? Where do you get 6 or 7 RJ's? Also, frequency is important, more daily flights means more flying passengers. People complain about Spirit, but it's not their seating, it's the number of available flights and getting stuck if a flight cancels. Also that article completely fails to account for how a 50 seat airplane actually will raise the cost of a seat for certain markets simply because there's fewer available seats.

Nantonaku

Not a good time to be a pilot if this is true.