I have been interested in this debate on scope between major airlines and the regionals and had a few questions.
1) How can a major airline limit flights at a regional which is not a subsidiary of that airline? Lets use Skywest as an example. How can Delta limit growth at Skywest?
Can they limit growth by saying that Delta can only codeshare X flights a month with Skywest where X is a certain percentage of the total number of Delta flights during the month?
2) In the past, I understand that one of the major drivers of regional revenue was the ability to codeshare with a major airline. Is this still true? Or is that changing?
If Skywest knows that lots of people use Delta to fly from Fresno to Portland via LAX, wouldn't Skywest be smart to schedule a direct flight from Fresno to Portland and cut Delta out of the picture completely? Is there anything to prevent that?
3) Does an airline like Delta make as much money from an airline such as Skywest than it does from ASA or Comair?
If Skywest is a competitor of Delta/ASA/Comair, it seems like Delta ought to eliminate the codeshare with Skywest and expand operations at Comair and ASA to include the entire US. In short, Delta should try and put Skywest out of business since they are a competitor.
1) How can a major airline limit flights at a regional which is not a subsidiary of that airline? Lets use Skywest as an example. How can Delta limit growth at Skywest?
Can they limit growth by saying that Delta can only codeshare X flights a month with Skywest where X is a certain percentage of the total number of Delta flights during the month?
2) In the past, I understand that one of the major drivers of regional revenue was the ability to codeshare with a major airline. Is this still true? Or is that changing?
If Skywest knows that lots of people use Delta to fly from Fresno to Portland via LAX, wouldn't Skywest be smart to schedule a direct flight from Fresno to Portland and cut Delta out of the picture completely? Is there anything to prevent that?
3) Does an airline like Delta make as much money from an airline such as Skywest than it does from ASA or Comair?
If Skywest is a competitor of Delta/ASA/Comair, it seems like Delta ought to eliminate the codeshare with Skywest and expand operations at Comair and ASA to include the entire US. In short, Delta should try and put Skywest out of business since they are a competitor.