ORD
 

I’ve posted a few times and have been pretty vocal about my frustrations with ORD. When I was hired Chicago was one of our biggest bases flying for all 3 codeshare partners and was the biggest reason I took a job with Republic.

Since I’ve been here we’ve lost American and Delta flying with not a single word from the company. Chicago has shrunk to 33 daily departures (last I talked to crew plan, that number might have changed) and with each passing month and another staffing outlook it doesn’t look like it’s changing anytime soon. My question is this for anyone on here that might be involved in pairing construction, does anyone know what’s going on? Does the company voice any of their concerns to the pairing committee or union? It literally seems like if it doesn’t affect Indy or NY Republic couldn’t care less. I’m actually shocked ORD is even still open.

And yes, I understand this is a regional and we’re at the mercy of our codeshare partners and where they want us flying. But I’d imagine we have at least some say in where we fly? And if not and Republic can’t protect they flying we do have what’s the point? I’m not mad, just disappointed.

OO and Envoy took the DL, AA and much of the UAL routes. We never lost any flying though, just shifted it to other bases. Some went to IAH, MIA, IND, CMH and MCI. I'm an outstation based guy and I agree that ORD should be a much larger base than what it is. I wouldn't slam your colleagues though, it wasn't the outstation based pilots that wanted ORD to shrink. It was UA and DL and AA giving our flying to our competitors for a variety of reasons. One being primarily the cost. We have great pay and QOL, but it comes at a price...

We haven’t lost any flying, just moved it around. The outstations have actually grown, as ORD has gotten smaller. The only captain who has made it into ORD in the last couple years, is one of the ACPs. I know it sucks to hear, but ORD is a dying base.

Oh yea I’m not slamming our colleagues by any means. It’s not their fault our codeshare partners have awarded ORD flying to our competitors. The lack of communication from the company and their “everything is fine” attitude is unbelievable frustrating.

I would be shocked if Chicago is still open this time next year with how much flying we’ve lost there. I’m convinced it’s only open for recruiting purposes at this point.

Agreed, but probably also retention purposes. Probably will close eventually, but I doubt it’s anytime soon.

It’s going to get even worse when ExpressJet puts there 175s in ORD. No one seemed to care when they were awarded the new aircraft instead of us. Looks like it’s going to directly affect some people now. How ironic.

Yea I think what it boils down to is cost. Bedford even said exactly that in his Memorial Day update. Our partners are happy with our performance but still concerned with our high cost. Which doesn’t really make sense considering most of our competitors contracts are very close to ours now in terms of pay, benefits, etc.

Unfortunately Republic is and always will be the northeast regional that can’t seem to protect the flying we do outside of the NY market. RPA is a great place to work if you live in NY or one of our massive outstations, otherwise it’s probably not worth commuting for anymore.

This was the main reason I went to ZW after getting an offer at RPA as well. Living in ORD, that was a big pull, and as I talked to more and more folks at Republic, they said it just wasn’t realistic, and commuting to IND (while doable) just didn’t sound near as fun. Bummer too because RPA had been tops of my list for ages.

You probably made the right choice. Republic seems to use the outstation model as a recruitment tool, which results in very few real hub bases.

Because it's expensive. Which is also hilarious because we use the outstation model due to it's cost effectiveness, yet claim we're too expensive hahah.