General Lee
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Originally Posted by Aviation Week and Space Technology
SkyWest Concerned About 50-Seater Fleet Under Delta’s New Feeder Plan
Aviation Daily Jul16, 2012 , p. 1.01
Andrew Compart
Delta Air Lines ’ plan to encourage its regional airline partners to end their 50-seat regional jet flying before feeder contracts expire could run into resistance at SkyWest , the largest regional operator in the U.S., unless the affected aircraft can continue to generate revenue.
Delta plans to offer its regional airline partners contracts for new or additional 76-seat flying as an incentive to break current capacity supply agreements and reduce 50-seat regional jet operations, Delta’s pilots union says. Enabling that plan was a major motivator for the new labor contract that Delta and the AirLinePilotsAssociation ( ALPA ) finalized in June.
SkyWest CFO Michael Kraupp, however, tells Aviation Week that such an offer would not be acceptable unless an alternative is provided for the 50-seat jets.
“We have no interest in parking aircraft,” Kraupp says. “I don’t think you can make enough on dual-class aircraft coming in to justify the costs in parking the aircraft.”
Various DeltaConnection carriers currently operate about 345 50-seat regional jets for Delta, but the airline wants to reduce the number to 125 as soon as the end of 2015 because high fuel costs have made the aircraft increasingly uneconomical and many of the engines are coming due for expensive overhauls.
Delta is contractually obligated to operate 311 of its 50-seat aircraft through the end of 2015 and 155 through 2019, according to ALPA .
SkyWest subsidiaries SkyWest Airlines and ExpressJet operate about 90 and 60 Bombardier CRJ200 aircraft , respectively, for Delta, under 15-year contracts that Kraupp says do not expire until 2020. Kraupp is emphatic that Delta does not have any rights in the current contract to tell SkyWest to cease the 50-seater operations before the agreements expire.
Apart from SkyWest ’s two divisions, Delta also contracts 50-seat jet feed from Pinnacle Airlines, which is operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with Delta financing, and from Republic Airways subsidiary Chautauqua Airlines. Delta’s own subsidiary, Comair, also operates 50-seat jets .
Pinnacle, however, is the most venerable of these feeders , with 141 CRJ200s assigned to the Delta contract .
Bye Bye---General Lee
SkyWest Concerned About 50-Seater Fleet Under Delta’s New Feeder Plan
Aviation Daily Jul16, 2012 , p. 1.01
Andrew Compart
Delta Air Lines ’ plan to encourage its regional airline partners to end their 50-seat regional jet flying before feeder contracts expire could run into resistance at SkyWest , the largest regional operator in the U.S., unless the affected aircraft can continue to generate revenue.
Delta plans to offer its regional airline partners contracts for new or additional 76-seat flying as an incentive to break current capacity supply agreements and reduce 50-seat regional jet operations, Delta’s pilots union says. Enabling that plan was a major motivator for the new labor contract that Delta and the AirLinePilotsAssociation ( ALPA ) finalized in June.
SkyWest CFO Michael Kraupp, however, tells Aviation Week that such an offer would not be acceptable unless an alternative is provided for the 50-seat jets.
“We have no interest in parking aircraft,” Kraupp says. “I don’t think you can make enough on dual-class aircraft coming in to justify the costs in parking the aircraft.”
Various DeltaConnection carriers currently operate about 345 50-seat regional jets for Delta, but the airline wants to reduce the number to 125 as soon as the end of 2015 because high fuel costs have made the aircraft increasingly uneconomical and many of the engines are coming due for expensive overhauls.
Delta is contractually obligated to operate 311 of its 50-seat aircraft through the end of 2015 and 155 through 2019, according to ALPA .
SkyWest subsidiaries SkyWest Airlines and ExpressJet operate about 90 and 60 Bombardier CRJ200 aircraft , respectively, for Delta, under 15-year contracts that Kraupp says do not expire until 2020. Kraupp is emphatic that Delta does not have any rights in the current contract to tell SkyWest to cease the 50-seater operations before the agreements expire.
Apart from SkyWest ’s two divisions, Delta also contracts 50-seat jet feed from Pinnacle Airlines, which is operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with Delta financing, and from Republic Airways subsidiary Chautauqua Airlines. Delta’s own subsidiary, Comair, also operates 50-seat jets .
Pinnacle, however, is the most venerable of these feeders , with 141 CRJ200s assigned to the Delta contract .
Bye Bye---General Lee
