Originally Posted by higney85 (Post 2251193)

When regional feed is roughly half of the domestic brand feed, chopping off the rj kills not only the half of domestic feed, but the majority of intl feed, on a macro level. Few truly fly from JFK-LHR as their trip, it's a layover involving an RJ to complete the journey. You get no pushback on mainline taking flying back, but regionals exist to supply feed at a discount. Thinking otherwise isn't following the money. If 2 mainline flights a day, same seats, cheaper overall costs, worked better than 5-6 RJ's a day, it would have been done in 2009 when things went sideways. Instead of 5-6 a day, the schedule was 4-5 in an effort to ensure profitability, or minimize loss. You can't put mainline (76+ everywhere) and make a profit without frequency and a network to meet demand of both time and cost. Once you kill a station from one carrier, the others simply grow the presence. The same existed with 19 seats, 34 seats, and 50 seats. The population grows and costs come down per seat to allow overall growth, but at the end of the day the frequency is still a need and empty seats are lost revenue. Years down the road a 50 seater 5x a day will likely be replaced with a 76 seater 6x a day. That's 250 seats vs 456 seats. The difference is population growth vs operating costs. More seats filled, lower cost, newer aircraft are cheaper per seat mile, if you fill them. Economics 101. If you can fill 400+ a day at X price, the margin of profit is higher than 250 @ Y.

Originally Posted by Mercyful Fate (Post 2251354)

Good grief, amazes me how many people still just don't get why there is regional model at all, and why majors don't want to dabble in it.

Originally Posted by Ordell (Post 2253452)

Ok I have to ask as a non-pilot, why does Delta have sway over SkyWest in terms of what planes it can fly? If SkyWest wants to fly a 87.3k pound plane and Delta limits its regionals to 86k, what business is it of theirs? SkyWest pilots are SkyWest employees, not Delta employees, aren't they?

Originally Posted by Ordell (Post 2253452)

Ok I have to ask as a non-pilot, why does Delta have sway over SkyWest in terms of what planes it can fly? If SkyWest wants to fly a 87.3k pound plane and Delta limits its regionals to 86k, what business is it of theirs? SkyWest pilots are SkyWest employees, not Delta employees, aren't they?

Originally Posted by gloopy (Post 2253500)

Because we own the code. Period.

SKYW can fly hourly A380's from their SGU hub to every city in America if they want to. They just can't do it while being a DL partner.

SKYW is free to go IndyAir anytime they want to. But as long as they want to do DL (or UAL, etc) flying, they are subject to those agreements and WRT DL, DALPA owns the code and controls what they can do. They do not have, nor will we grant, them permission to go above our current seat and weight limits. Not allowed. Period.

Originally Posted by gloopy (Post 2253500)

Because we own the code. Period.

SKYW can fly hourly A380's from their SGU hub to every city in America if they want to. They just can't do it while being a DL partner.

SKYW is free to go IndyAir anytime they want to. But as long as they want to do DL (or UAL, etc) flying, they are subject to those agreements and WRT DL, DALPA owns the code and controls what they can do. They do not have, nor will we grant, them permission to go above our current seat and weight limits. Not allowed. Period.

Originally Posted by Ordell (Post 2253452)

Ok I have to ask as a non-pilot, why does Delta have sway over SkyWest in terms of what planes it can fly? If SkyWest wants to fly a 87.3k pound plane and Delta limits its regionals to 86k, what business is it of theirs? SkyWest pilots are SkyWest employees, not Delta employees, aren't they?

Originally Posted by bnkangle (Post 2253529)

You own a McDonald's. It's your restaurant, but are you allowed to sell pizza and egg rolls? No.

Originally Posted by bnkangle (Post 2253529)

You own a McDonald's. It's your restaurant, but are you allowed to sell pizza and egg rolls? No.