The Regional Situation

[Skywest Pylot]

At the regionals you have thousands of pilots many of whom are barely making ends meet while trying to pay off the ridiculous loans they took out for their flight training. These pilots are hungry and they are willing to fly just about anything to have a little better QOL and put a few extra bucks in their pockets. These pilots are hungry and dangerous (especially considering the current state of our industry).

If I was in charge at ALPA national, APA, SWAPA, etc. I would demand (not ask) that all regional feed flying be done by union pilots. I also would establish minimum pilot pay rates based on aircraft size (seating capacity) and seat position for those regional pilots. If the smaller jets are not economically feasible at the regionals then larger aircraft should be flown by mainline pilots. Pilots should not chip in for gas.

It seems that if you want to improve the situation at the major/mainline level, you've got to start at the bottom and work your way up building a solid foundation. If this situation is not dealt with soon I believe regional pilots will be flying 100+ seat mainline replacement aircraft (regardless of scope) History shows us the guys/gals at the top of this industry will sell out the guys/gals at the bottom without hesitation. A word of warning to those pilots: You cannot escape the sinking ship by climbing the mast leaving your collegues to drown below. We are all in this together. You got 5 more years of flying with age 65 (at the expense of my future upgrade) and are getting more international flying with open skies (at the potential expense of open skies part 2). These issues are dead (ALPA folded like a cheap lawn chair).

So, while we're all arguing about mergers and seniority list integration, maybe we should take some time to get the regional situation taken care of.

Thoughts?

 

[Andy Neill]

... If the smaller jets are not economically feasible at the regionals then larger aircraft should be flown by mainline pilots. ...Thoughts?

If a route is not economically feasible with a 50-seat jet flown at regional pay rates, it certainly won't be economically feasible being flown with a 100+ seat aircraft at mainline rates.

 

[AA717driver]

If a route is not economically feasible with a 50-seat jet flown at regional pay rates, it certainly won't be economically feasible being flown with a 100+ seat aircraft at mainline rates.

Not true. The CASM for 50-seaters even at Regional slave wages is STILL higher than a mainline NB. TC

 

[Andrew_VT]

If a route is not economically feasible with a 50-seat jet flown at regional pay rates, it certainly won't be economically feasible being flown with a 100+ seat aircraft at mainline rates.

Do you actually think crew pay is the biggest cost of getting X number of passengers from point A to B?

Do you actually believe what you wrote above? You don't see any flaws is this rationale?

Really? 4 50-seater regional pilots make so much less than 2 100-seater mainline pilots that it overrides all other factors? (fuel, rampies, infrastructure, gates, gate agents, a/c leases, landing fees, ect?)

 

[Mookie]

If a route is not economically feasible with a 50-seat jet flown at regional pay rates, it certainly won't be economically feasible being flown with a 100+ seat aircraft at mainline rates.

sorry andy, but u r wrong. Fuel burn on a 737-800 is the same at altitude as a CRJ 700. we carrry 157 pax, and a bunch of cargo that an RJ couldn't possiblly hold. CASM is what the game is all about nowdays. I'm betting the days of fee for departure are over for any regional contract in the future. Unfortuantely SkyW will not be able to count on those cushy preset profit margins that they have been able to in the past. much to the delight of pax, the aircraft will get bigger.

Mookie

 

[General Lee]

sorry andy, but u r wrong. Fuel burn on a 737-800 is the same at altitude as a CRJ 700. we carrry 157 pax, and a bunch of cargo that an RJ couldn't possiblly hold. CASM is what the game is all about nowdays. I'm betting the days of fee for departure are over for any regional contract in the future. Unfortuantely SkyW will not be able to count on those cushy preset profit margins that they have been able to in the past. much to the delight of pax, the aircraft will get bigger.

Mookie

With Aloha's demise thanks to higher fuel and Mesa, it shows that some routes can't be flown profitably with certain aircraft. Their 737-700s flying from the mainland to Hawaii just weren't cutting it with high fuel, and they needed larger planes to lower the CASM. How are your 738s doing to Hawaii by the way? You ANC guys still get to fly those, right? That must be awesome. Are you guys at Alaska getting any larger planes than the 739?


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[Frank Lorenzo]

I also would establish minimum pilot pay rates based on aircraft size (seating capacity) and seat position for those regional pilots.

You "would" huh?

So how exactly "would" you do this?

How are guys at the mainline supposed to negotiate a contract at the regional level for a different company?

If the pilots at regional airline X want more money, why don't they walk? Best I recall, the Comair guys did this and were quite successfull.

You seem to be confused on this whole concept. What don't you get?

 

[Bruno82]

The cost of fuel has to be passed on to the customer. It seems that most other industries see it that way.

We need to stick together as well. Some of the hungry regional pilots are dangerous to unity. (I am one.)

 

[spacecadet1]

It just doesn't make sense to invest the time and money to become a regional pilot to work for nothing. Unless of course you're a loser.

 

[Mookie]

Wouldn't know...G.L....

Mookie

 

[Skywest Pylot]

You "would" huh?

So how exactly "would" you do this?

How are guys at the mainline supposed to negotiate a contract at the regional level for a different company?

That is why I said,

If I was in charge at ALPA national, APA, SWAPA, etc. I would demand (not ask) that all regional feed flying be done by union pilots.

The union would establish minimum pay rates per services rendered (by # of seats and seat position). No more of this lowering the bar for growth bullsh!t.

F.L. said,

If the pilots at regional airline X want more money, why don't they walk? Best I recall, the Comair guys did this and were quite successfull.

The Comair pilots got undercut by other carriers (Skywest included). IMO this is what needs to be fixed.

F.L. said,

You seem to be confused on this whole concept. What don't you get?

It seems pretty clear to me. It's time to fix the sinking ship at the Regional level. If the airlines can't make money without more concessions then it is time to raise ticket prices. Pilots should not chip in for gas nor growth. Especially considering the 100s of millions of dollars in stock and compensation that management has stolen from our industry this past year alone!

 

[Baze]

Jen Lee,

Are you still impressed by the size of your mighty 767? Trying to compensate for something are we?

Who cares if we never fly anything bigger than a 737-900? We care more about increasing the $$$$ in our pockets and increasing our time at home.

You're welcome to the exotic overnights and flying the heavy iron.

With Aloha's demise thanks to higher fuel and Mesa, it shows that some routes can't be flown profitably with certain aircraft. Their 737-700s flying from the mainland to Hawaii just weren't cutting it with high fuel, and they needed larger planes to lower the CASM. How are your 738s doing to Hawaii by the way? You ANC guys still get to fly those, right? That must be awesome. Are you guys at Alaska getting any larger planes than the 739?


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[Smacktard]

sorry andy, but u r wrong. Fuel burn on a 737-800 is the same at altitude as a CRJ 700. we carrry 157 pax, and a bunch of cargo that an RJ couldn't possiblly hold. CASM is what the game is all about nowdays. I'm betting the days of fee for departure are over for any regional contract in the future. Unfortuantely SkyW will not be able to count on those cushy preset profit margins that they have been able to in the past. much to the delight of pax, the aircraft will get bigger.

Mookie

If that's all there is to the equation why aren't 777's and 747's going to Brunswick GA? Oh yeah, 'cause they can't fill them up. There's a little more to this than just CASM. My guess is that it's CASM and flying the correct size aircraft the 'proper' number of times per day. You can cry all you want about the 50 seaters going away but until a market can support bigger/better planes, the 50's and 70's aren't going to disappear overnight.

 

[Mookie]

If that's all there is to the equation why aren't 777's and 747's going to Brunswick GA? Oh yeah, 'cause they can't fill them up. There's a little more to this than just CASM. My guess is that it's CASM and flying the correct size aircraft the 'proper' number of times per day. You can cry all you want about the 50 seaters going away but until a market can support bigger/better planes, the 50's and 70's aren't going to disappear overnight.

am not sure if you were trying to flame me, but I actually totally agree with you. There will be some communities that lose service b/c there will not be the YIELD (the only thing that really matters) to be able to support Brunswick, Ga.... For all of their apparent mis-management at least Alaska/Horizon has the right idea at the right time in fleet consolidation of the two companies (all 737 and Q400). we won't have that 50 seat problem.

thanks Baze...don't feed the comedian. i still think he's an aspiring pilot sitting around in his underwear making these brilliant assertions based on nothng other than 10hrs a day cruising blogs...but that's just my opinion.

peace out,
Mookie

 

[trip]

Fuel burn on a 737-800 is the same at altitude as a CRJ 700.Mookie

Your kidding right? I fly one and jumpseat on the other, fuel burn is typically double in the mid 30's

 

[F/O]

If a route is not economically feasible with a 50-seat jet flown at regional pay rates, it certainly won't be economically feasible being flown with a 100+ seat aircraft at mainline rates.

Good god, where've you been for the last few years, bro? Indy Air got steamrolled due to high CASM of the CRJ. Even JO is dropping 50 seaters like hot potatoes. Sounds another like a Skywest lifer to me...

 

[Mookie]

Your kidding right? I fly one and jumpseat on the other, fuel burn is typically double in the mid 30's

sorry, I'll be more specific...at 410...they are the same...(depending on what cost index you use.) at lower altitudes, the 73-800 is a little more than the CRJ 700, but not by much. the 73-700 is also very close, but with quite a few less pax.

Mookie

 

[~~~^~~~]

Skywest Pylot:

The place to start cleaning up is your own house. How many times have SkyWest pilots failed to vote a union on the property? How many of ASA's jets do you operate due to aircraft transfers while ASA was trying to raise their compensation and work rules? How giddy were your fellow pilots when upgrades were 6 months at Skywest and 5 years at ASA? How do you like SLC, and ATL bases?

SkyWest should move beyond the Student Counsel and get a union.

You may have moved on, but the problem at the regional level remains the same. They do not own the brand. As long as ALPA allows the outsourcing management will get the work done by the lowest bidder. I like some of your ideas, but coming from a "SkyWest Pylot" it seems hypocritical in the extreme.

 

[Andy Neill]

Not true. The CASM for 50-seaters even at Regional slave wages is STILL higher than a mainline NB. TC

My response was based on 50 passengers. If there are only 50 passengers, it doesn't make sense to fly an aircraft with higher trip cost regardless of how cheaply those empty seats are being moved.

Do you actually believe what you wrote above?

Yes I do. See above.

sorry andy, but u r wrong. Fuel burn on a 737-800 is the same at altitude as a CRJ 700. we carrry 157 pax, and a bunch of cargo that an RJ couldn't possiblly hold. CASM is what the game is all about nowdays.

Which do you think has the higher cost per revenue passenger? A 737 with 50 passengers paying mainline wages or a CRJ200 with 50 passengers paying regional wages. I have been using "put the right size plane on the route" since 1998 when I started on these boards and the debate over scope/and 50 seat RJs was raging. Then I said that regionals make sense to develop markets and then turn them over to the mainline craft when the market warranted increase in size while considering frequency.

If that's all there is to the equation why aren't 777's and 747's going to Brunswick GA? Oh yeah, 'cause they can't fill them up. There's a little more to this than just CASM. My guess is that it's CASM and flying the correct size aircraft the 'proper' number of times per day. You can cry all you want about the 50 seaters going away but until a market can support bigger/better planes, the 50's and 70's aren't going to disappear overnight.

Amen

Good god, where've you been for the last few years, bro? Indy Air got steamrolled due to high CASM of the CRJ. Even JO is dropping 50 seaters like hot potatoes. Sounds another like a Skywest lifer to me...

I'm not saying there are not routes that should be eliminated due to yield insufficient to support a CRJ. I am saying that route would not support a 737 either. If I'm a SKyWest lifer, they owe me over a year of back pay.

 

[rtmcfi]

Skywest Pylot:

The place to start cleaning up is your own house. How many times have SkyWest pilots failed to vote a union on the property? How many of ASA's jets do you operate due to aircraft transfers while ASA was trying to raise their compensation and work rules? How giddy were your fellow pilots when upgrades were 6 months at Skywest and 5 years at ASA? How do you like SLC, and ATL bases?

SkyWest should move beyond the Student Counsel and get a union.

You may have moved on, but the problem at the regional level remains the same. They do not own the brand. As long as ALPA allows the outsourcing management will get the work done by the lowest bidder. I like some of your ideas, but coming from a "SkyWest Pylot" it seems hypocritical in the extreme.

Unfortunately, the SkyWest Pilots refuse time and time again to unionize. The merits of ALPA are not good enough to get the SkyWest guys to take the plunge.
The carrot failed. It is time to try the stick. The only stick big enough, as far as I can see would be something along the lines of only union carriers doing feed for union mainlines. If that is unobtainable by mainline folks, how about no non-union folks getting hired at ALPA carriers. If these guys at places like SkyWest knew they would be unable to move on, they might rethink their anti-union stance.

All that said, the unions, on a national level need to come up with a better strategy at contract time. It is tough to blame everything on SkyWest, when other, less desirable places to work, which are union represented exist.

 

[CFI2766]

All that said, the unions, on a national level need to come up with a better strategy at contract time. It is tough to blame everything on SkyWest, when other, less desirable places to work, which are union represented exist.[/quote]


+1

Perhaps ALPA would better serve pilots as a whole if they looked after the interests of pilots as a whole, as opposed to the interests of pilots from DL, NW, SKYW, ASA, MESA, etc...

 

[Mookie]

Andy,

with some due respect, I havn't had 50 pax on a 737 in the almost 2 years i've been flying it. Loads have been insane, especially lately. The few times with light loads have been thru small cities in alaska...where the offset with that revenue is with the extrememly lucrative cargo that a 50 or 70 seater couldn't possibly carry. hell...a 50 seater can't even carry 50 pax worth of bags, much less any other cargo!!!

right sizing is a swell idea...the problem is that in this day of $110/brl oil...if the plane that is 1/3 the size burns the same fuel...where is the savings? The day of developing market is pretty much over I think b/c unless yields are solid, with the cost of operations, it's just not going to happen. I forsee markets in fact being dropped as smaller rj's go away b/c there is not the market to support a 73 or airbi with more than 50 pax per flight. unless the market can support a Q400 or 73, it's probably going away in our route system...just trying to read the tea leaves basd on what i see on the line, not just guessing from the sidelines.

Sorry, but your logic is much too simplistic, but not unexpected.

Mookie

 

[imlars]

rasm, casm, sis boom bah

I bet that 737 wasn't operating MEM FSM or DFW SGF or JAN DFW ect....

The industry is a money loser on all equipment types and all city pairs, on a long term analysis. Ie, the red ink is way more than the black ink has ever been or will ever be. As a for profit industry airlines have failed.

 

[Andy Neill]

Andy,

with some due respect, I havn't had 50 pax on a 737 in the almost 2 years i've been flying it. Loads have been insane, especially lately.

Exactly! This is an example of right-sizing. Why put multiple 50's on a route that can be covered by a 737 with adequate frequency.

right sizing is a swell idea...the problem is that in this day of $110/brl oil...if the plane that is 1/3 the size burns the same fuel...where is the savings?

Not sold on that assumption but do disagree on routes short enough that the altidue necessary to match fuel burns won't be reached long enough to cruise.

The day of developing market is pretty much over I think b/c unless yields are solid, with the cost of operations, it's just not going to happen.
I forsee markets in fact being dropped as smaller rj's go away b/c there is not the market to support a 73 or airbi with more than 50 pax per flight.

I disagree here. Somewhere in the spectrum of markets, there are shorter routes that have little competition that can produce enough yield per ticket but not enough tickets to fill larger aircraft where the 50 will beat the economics of a 737. I certainly agree there are much fewer of those out there than there used to be.

unless the market can support a Q400 or 73, it's probably going away in our route system...just trying to read the tea leaves basd on what i see on the line, not just guessing from the sidelines.

I see that too for more and more routes/markets

Sorry, but your logic is much too simplistic, but not unexpected.

Darn! ....and I try so hard to be logical and balanced in my posts.

 

[SSDD]

Mookie,

Twelve RJs/day between PHX and SLC is insane, but on the other hand, you are trying to apply the Alaska model which is unique in so many ways, to other markets, and that's not right either.

Until spring break, I'd been commuting of Airbuses and MD90s with 50 and 60 open seats. makes my life easier, not so good for UA and DL.

 

[Marko Ramius]

The problem with the 'developing market' or the markets that can truly only provide 50 pax is that the revenues tend to be very low which makes for very thin margins. If you can't make it up enough of it on beyond revenue through the hub, then keeping those flights in the system becomes of suspect value especially with high fuel prices pressuring those tight margins even further. This of course assumes a perfect world where a company could simply dispose of the a/c it no longer wanted vs. the one we live in that has contracts in place and/or aircraft owned by the respective major airline.

Both of these things restrict their ability to adjust their networks, although I can't say I feel too bad about it as the numbers and issues have been known for years. They were just easily ignored in the days of higher fares, ability to use them as a labor cost pressure lever, and by some as a quick buck measure to raise shareholder value by making balance sheets look better with lower capital investment and seemingly dramatic lower labor and fuel costs. Many analysts still don't know/recognize what's really in the cost-numbers for for fee-per departure agreements.
Purely from a management perspective(temporarily ignoring that we all have jobs involved here) it is a little funny to watch these guys squirm with the monster they've created and brought to the dance especially since neither labor nor the lessors seem to be in the mood to help after the beating they both took in BK.

 

[AC560]

Skywest Pylot:

The place to start cleaning up is your own house. How many times have SkyWest pilots failed to vote a union on the property? How many of ASA's jets do you operate due to aircraft transfers while ASA was trying to raise their compensation and work rules? How giddy were your fellow pilots when upgrades were 6 months at Skywest and 5 years at ASA? How do you like SLC, and ATL bases?

Which typifies why the industry is in the toilet. Unless the various divisions of ALPA and non-affiliated unions start working together to solve the industry problems as opposed to specific issues at specific airlines you guys are going to continue to come up losers every time. The management at the airlines collude (legally in most cases) to create advantage for themselves, so what are you doing and your union to effect the necessary change at Skywest should be the question. Because like it or not your futures are all tied together. Toss a pilot a bone today in exchange for a B scale or some other scope limitation tomorrow and the pilot always takes the short term win and screws himself in the end.

Just the random thoughts of a management hack.

 

[Mookie]

Mookie,

Twelve RJs/day between PHX and SLC is insane, but on the other hand, you are trying to apply the Alaska model which is unique in so many ways, to other markets, and that's not right either.

Until spring break, I'd been commuting of Airbuses and MD90s with 50 and 60 open seats. makes my life easier, not so good for UA and DL.

50-60 open seats are ok as long as the yield on the flight is ok...same logic applies when we lose money on a full flight from sea-lax. its economics that is waaaaay above my paygrade. i'm thinking our model may be one that is more applicable to the future of domestic carriers. hopefully angle lake will get their heads out of the sand long enough to realize the potential we have.

Mookie

 

[Skywest Pylot]

Horizon is not flying a bunch of 50 seat gas guzzlers (by CPSM standards). Correct me if I am wrong but isn't Horizon getting rid of their RJs and going turbo prop? (Q400) IMO, other regionals should be doing the same.

 

[Airline Driver]

Horizon is not flying a bunch of 50 seat gas guzzlers (by CPSM standards). Correct me if I am wrong but isn't Horizon getting rid of their RJs and going turbo prop? (Q400) IMO, other regionals should be doing the same.

Has your Pilot group talked about unionizing in house? Perhaps your own union would have a better taste that ALPA or Teamsters.