Bloomberg: "...Republic Airways Holdings Inc. shares pared a decline, rallying after the local union representing pilots said it was ready to resume talks in a contract dispute.
The union wants “to complete a consensual agreement as soon as possible,” according a statement posted on its website Wednesday.
Republic fell 7.9 percent to $2.79 at 12:20 p.m. in New York, after declining as much as 32 percent..."

The better the pay is up front and in the middle will keep the ball rolling. There are way too many lifers at Republic that are comfortable with their $110 an hour. Sure, if the majors up the ante and pay more for contracts, it can work.

PicJink, that strategy is outdated by about two years when Pinnacolaba voted yes to their bankruptcy contract. Here are 3 reasons you are wrong :

1. RAH isn't even in bankruptcy yet, although you will be soon wether you vote for this lousy contract or not doesn't matter. RAH hired Seabury, they are a closer and nothing will stop the bankruptcy now, and that is not necassarily a bad thing by the way.

2. At this moment, any gig is better than RAH, especially if you are an F.O. You can start over and still do just as good as you would if you vote yes on this contract.

3. You will not be taking a vacation, No regional that has gone through bankruptcy in the last 2 years has furloughed (reference Envoy and Endeavor), and lets pretend that did happen. So what. You will have another job before before the ink is dry on your pink slip. No long vacations.

You have to understand, this is a win/win for managment, and a lose/lose for you. If you vote no, RAH managment gets to blame the pilots for going into bankruptcy and then get what they want (and WILL get) anyway. Vote yes, and they get you for the next 3 years at below market rates and go and renegotiate their mainline contracts. Either way, you lose. So why not say no, let nature take it's course, and RAH will be under extreme pressure from their mainline partners to get their labor problems under control. This is all about leverage, and voting no gives you a lot. RAH will struggle to get codeshares to agree to fresh new contracts with the very turbulent and volitale labor situation at RAH. No mainline wants a strike looming, and you can bet that BB gets calls every week from DAL, UAL, and AA telling him to get his house in order. As you would say, "not a tough choice".

No I'm not a lifer. Far from it. However I fly with lots of guys that live in outstation based that are happy working at a regional and getting to drive to work. Going to DAL and commuting to SEA might not be something they want to deal with if they have a family etc etc.

I don't agree with your assumption that lifers are the problem, in fact they only help our struggle to end the regionals once and for all. Their higher pay scales drive up the cost of the regional feed and promote the move to an all major airline model.

I think however I am just wasting my time, because your responses on this thread reek of troll. You're getting slightly too emotional about a topic, without using those critical thinking skills you have to see past today and look to what the outcomes would be. Do you really want cheap regional labor? Will that make the path to a major easier? Will the majors not outsource more flying if they know the regional feed would continue to be cheap as dirt? Not good man.

I think he's referencing the fact that the lifers make up a minority of the list but account for a majority of the payroll cost. The pie is a fixed size and the lifers are getting too big of a chunk, hence the ridiculously low pay rates for FOs and junior captains. Lifers will eventually have to take a massive pay cut in order for the company to increase pay elsewhere.

I get what he is saying. But I don't think that is necessary. Did the regionals start with high FO wages and only recently start to lower them because of a higher cost of the "lifer" crowd? No. The pay has been garbage from the beginning because they knew people would take it. Not the case anymore.

If the pie is a fixed total dollar amount, and the company providing the pie is still making money hand over fist (one billion in a year, looking at you Mr D) maybe they ought to give a bigger pie, or better yet, keep the pie themselves and buy more planes.

The profits made by the mainline company are absolutely irrelevant. What right does any regional pilot have to demand a cut of the action from an entirely different company? That's just more of the entitlement issues so prevalent among my generation.

Not sure why this is so difficult to understand:

I do not want more money from mainline. I hope they refuse to pay more. I hope that causes them to take back more flying. I hope regionals don't exist in 5 years. I hope you understand this.

Seriously though, if the regional model lacking funds to properly pay its pilots, then they need more money from mainline. If they refuse, and drop routes or take back flying I'm totally cool with that.

It is not really an entirely different company though is it? The pilots gave up scope (I wish they didnt) and here we are, flying their customers, their paint, etc etc. If they don't want to pay for that.....we have options listed above.

Do you REALLY believe that the regionals will be gone in five years?

No, but I can dream!