Until someone stretches another corporate jet or tosses turboprops on a shrunken 170. short sighted to leave the 50 seat genie uncorked. I’d rather see the total number of frames shrink even if it means a few more 70/76 seaters in the interim. Maybe like a 1 70 seater for every 4 50 seaters trade. This is a career long issue and I think assuming the 50 seat concept is permanently dead will come back to bite people down the road.

 

Our current 'scope choke' simply limits the number of 70/76 seaters unless the company buys the a220/e190/e195. It stemmed from UALs argument to the mediator that they should have 325 airplanes to match Delta. ALPA argued that Delta had just brought on a fleet of B717s and that they should match that in order to get the additional 70 RJs. Here's some math... 88 Delta B717s ÷ additional 70 UAL RJs = 1.25. See if you find that number in Sec1.

The ultimate goal was to compel UAL to buy a fleet of mainline 100 seat airplanes to fill a gap they desperately wanted to fill. Then it turned out that Kirby has a different idea of aircraft size needed at UAL. His first move was to cancel the 737-700 order and buy larger planes. The United Next order is convincing evidence that he's NOT Jeff Smisek or Brian Znotins. We ordered the largest of thr available narrowbodies.

So what do we do with scope choke if UAL doesn’t want to buy 100 seat aircraft? Remember, we already had/have scope language preventing those aircraft from flying at express. Scope choke was an attempt to bring them to mainline and end the ongoing pressure/threat from UAL to erode our scope language. The reality is that Scott Kirby's fleet vision and strategy is 180⁰ from Jeff Smisek.

It's reasonable to explore releasing scope choke in exchange for other contractual gains WHILE LEAVING CURRENT SIZE/OPERATIONAL LIMITATIONS IN PLACE. Let them come to 325 parity with Delta but tighten up how they use them (range, markets, economic downturn, etc...). Depending on how the protections are written and what we gain this might not be seen as a concession. It's a fine line to walk for sure!

I'm actually expecting to spend most of my time pondering this sectionsection no/yes decision.

 

Scott Kirby ran AAs Highly profitable domestic RJ network before going to United. That network allegedly accounts for 50% of revenue dollars generated by AA.

AA scope allows 75% narrowbody fleet size of RJs with 40% being larger RJs (66-76 seat) and 60% smaller RJs (less than 65 seat) plus an additional 10% of narrowbody fleet size of Turboprops less than 50 seat.

 

I don't want to model our scope language after American 😯

 

We've been saying this for well over a decade.

 

So you'd be cool if they gave up 150 50-seat aircraft at express (7500 seats total) and replaced them with 74 100-seat aircraft and one more 76 seat aircraft (total of 7476 seats) at express for a net reduction of 24 seats? Yikes.

No. More 76 seaters is a scope loss.

 

Everyone thinking that 50 seaters will go away anyway should check out the latest application by SKYW.

they plan to fly CRJ with only 30 seats under 135 operations to circumvent the ATP rule.

https://downloads.regulations.gov/DO...tachment_1.pdf

 

Sunvox,

I agree with your list above except there is no mention of a vastly improved LTD to at least match DAL’s. 8K to 11K (in the Covid LOA) was a step in the right direction but still woefully inadequate.

DAL has no CAP, we cap at 11K. DAL gets a 32% B fund contribution on LTD (so they get a normal 16% B) we get 0 percent. They don’t use 1026 hours times pay rate (or blended rate as appropriate) to calculate pay total for the 50% (before cap). They use an actual average of pay hours the previous several years (don’t remember the time frame).

The only part of our LTD that is better is ours is tax free and DAL’s is taxable. This is be because DAL is paying 100% of the premiums (pilots pay 0). We pay a small portion of the premium (company pays the rest) with after tax dollars so our LTD benefit is tax free. If we’re smart we will still pay a small portion for LTD premium for the tax free benefit. DAL’s LTD tax free would truly be industry leading!

DAL type LTD is a hard line for me. No reason you should take a massive pay cut (and no retirement) if you go on LTD.

 

ummm no. Aircraft weight and Capacity limits remain per the current contract.

 

well you said you don't care what the jet allocation is, so make up your mind.