If I accept your drift, then QX pilots are in more trouble than we think. For example, our Q400 CA rates, let alone our 70-seat RJ rates, are already higher than jetBlue and USAirways Embraer 190 rates.
Nothing would surprise me much right now, but I think it's almost as likely that AS pilots would invite the 190 on their property for less than QX's current RJ and Q400 rates. Why not? If it's growth and it's going to be the junior aircraft, why wouldn't AS pilots take it at jetBlue or Airways rates?
What's lost in all this is why AAG doesn't just merge their two airlines. The overhead squandered on running two airlines under one marketing scheme is shameful. I'm surprised the board lets management get away with it.
Yep, the shock waves from Jet Blue rolling over on the 190 rates are still spreading through the industry. USAir then found itself having to underbid the Mesas of the world to capture 190 flying that, according to the ALPA mainline chest-thumpers, it already owned. Now a bunch of turboprop pilots on the other side of the country are going to end up being told: "they bent over, so you will too."
It's the whipsaw value that keeps the two airlines separate. If there's one thing airline managers fear it's united pilot groups. I've always thought that Alaska and Horizon had the best chance of anyone in the industry to get past the tribal jealousy thing and "get it right" and work together for the common good, whether through making joining the pilot groups a negotiating goal or simply understanding the benefits of not being the first one to grab for a crumb that management lets fall to the floor. I know for a fact that the Alaska pilots proposed a bid-through arrangement for Horizon pilots that would have saved millions annually that went nowhere fast.
It's hard to imagine the AAG making a capital investment in an EMB 190 program. I think that the jury's still out on the airframe itself, and even if that weren't an issue I don't think that Ayer & Co. would recognize opportunity if it walked up and bit them on the ass. There are a lot of advantages to having a single fleet type on the books. If they really thought that they needed that sort of lift in the system I'm pretty sure that they'd just pay someone else to take on the risks of ownership.
If the Air Group did decide to get into the 100 seat segment, it's unclear to me how much the Alaska pilots would have to underbid the current Horizon rates by to make it a wash financially. Pilots' hourly rates are just a part of compensation costs. Alaska's FA's get paid more, Alaska stays in nicer hotels, etc. I don't think that it could happen at rates above the highest FO scale.
Whatever, my money's on Alaska and SW deciding that beating each other up really isn't that much fun after all. The guys at the top will get paid, they'll throw the poor schmucks still holding onto their ALK shares a bone, and that will be that. Horizon will get spun off or sold to an existing operator who wants to get into the Q400 biz, and that will be that as well. Game over.
