Regions Air????

[Prop2Jet]

You guys hear that Mesa has been awared Quincy, Decauter and Marion Illinois?

 

[ContractFlyer]

If the Saabs are all that great (or not) and Regionsair still has them in the air...why do the flight attendants just walk away? Seems one little cutie just got pissed off at all the problems and told Regions to shove it and never came back. Seems the only ones that really like it there either have a boyfriend in the cockpit or are kissing butt in Smyrna.

 

[belchfire]

You guys hear that Mesa has been awared Quincy, Decauter and Marion Illinois?

Hadn't heard it but it wouldn't surprise me. There was a time that corpex ran a 99% reliability factor (controlable) and there were 1/2 week streches of 100% on time and completions. MAG's Air Midwest couldn't touch corpex in a dream back then. Of course that's when they had airplanes in MQY to rob spare parts off of.

That's been years ago...

 

[CopilotDoug]

You guys hear that Mesa has been awared Quincy, Decauter and Marion Illinois?

Serious? What about Colgan and Midway/O'Hare?

ContractFlyer, come on dude, you've been an FA at other airlines, you know how the game is played!

As for the Saabs? They'd be making more money if we loaned them out as Gate Guards.

 

[ContractFlyer]

Hey Dougie, I am not a DUDE try DUDETTE! Geez I am not male! And I am not Robert!

 

[CopilotDoug]

Dougie, all you gotta do is ask who I am....no problem. I have no secrets...

Care to dodge the question again?

 

[Clark W.]

Hey Dougie, I am not a DUDE try DUDETTE! Geez I am not male! And I am not Robert!

Word on the street is that you are a male FA who dreams of being tied up in Statesville Penn.

 

[CopilotDoug]

Word on the street is that you are a male FA who dreams of being tied up in Statesville Penn.

BWAAAAAAAAAHAHAHA!
:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

 

[belchfire]

Serious? What about Colgan and Midway/O'Hare?

ContractFlyer, come on dude, you've been an FA at other airlines, you know how the game is played!

As for the Saabs? They'd be making more money if we loaned them out as Gate Guards.

Dougcopilot...I saw the origional bids for the operation of the saabs...not sure how it ended up in the crew room but it did. One thing that I do remember is that per flight hour they were figuring about $280.00 or so for crew costs. That is the hotel rooms, all training, per diem, pay, everything.

An example. Since a 737 type costs about 7 grand we'll just call a saab type the same. We'll just say that eveyone got typed to keep it easy. We'll say that the pilots actually fly 700 hours a year instead of the 900 they get paid for. Per hour, per crew member that is TEN DOLLARS PER HOUR FOR FLIGHT TRAINING!!! Okay, the CA's have to go back every six months, but that isn't anywhere near the cost of the initial type. $150 per night per crew for rooms
(yeah, you wish they were getting you a $50 room, don't you?) and say $90/day/crew for perdiem.

So the airplane doesn't fly on payed routes all the time. They should at least 80% of the time. And I'll throw in the FA's too. 120% of $30/hr is $36/hr training cost.

You get my drift...

The only way I could come close to getting their crew costs was to start doubling things. Including running two Ca's on opentime with a base pay of $45/hr...

Those Saabs are flying subsidized routes...and the numbers they used to arrive at the hourly costs were good. They are paying for themselves, don't worry. Actually, based on the compensation you're getting, you are helping to pay for them!

I know the way people work out on the line at regions. If there is a problem it isn't in the field-don't ever let them try to make you think otherwise. If they say that they are loosing money it is only because of the way they are trying to amoritize the startup costs that they couldn't have possibly done much more to botch up themselves and still had the thing get going at all...

 

[CopilotDoug]

Those Saabs are flying subsidized routes...and the numbers they used to arrive at the hourly costs were good. They are paying for themselves, don't worry. Actually, based on the compensation you're getting, you are helping to pay for them!

I hope you're right, Belch. To say these planes are MX hogs would be an understatement of the year. Reliability was improving and then it got cold outside. Management couldn't have possibly baked MX issues like these into the business plan or else they would have run from these planes. The leasing companies that own these airplanes should be paying RegionsAir to put up with this BS. Somethings on the horizon for RegionsAir, though. Let's just hope it's not the end for Regions.

 

[belchfire]

I hope you're right, Belch. To say these planes are MX hogs would be an understatement of the year. Reliability was improving and then it got cold outside. Management couldn't have possibly baked MX issues like these into the business plan or else they would have run from these planes. The leasing companies that own these airplanes should be paying RegionsAir to put up with this BS. Somethings on the horizon for RegionsAir, though. Let's just hope it's not the end for Regions.

The change of seasons always spurs a rash of problems. I bet the jballs are doing some wierd stuff too...they always did for the first couple of weeks of cold. They don't like it any more than I do!

Well, the older and more clapped out the airplane, the cheaper the lease...I don't know what the difference would have been to go ahead and get -B or B+'s that hadn't been parked for as long, or to sent a crew and mechanic to check the airplane out (rather than two pilots to bring it home regardless of the condition) and really I do hope it works out. But the whole thing looks like it was a good plan that was poorly executed.

The big question is "have they learned anything?"...

only time will tell.

 

[Berkut]

The change of seasons always spurs a rash of problems. I bet the jballs are doing some wierd stuff too...they always did for the first couple of weeks of cold. They don't like it any more than I do!

Cold weather is good! The engines will actually make power, and the freon can stay MEL'ed until next year.

Well, the older and more clapped out the airplane, the cheaper the lease...I don't know what the difference would have been to go ahead and get -B or B+'s that hadn't been parked for as long

I don't think there were any.

or to sent a crew and mechanic to check the airplane out (rather than two pilots to bring it home regardless of the condition)

That's part of the problem. Very few of the MX guys had any Saab experience. The ones that did only had experience in the B(+) models, and that was over ten years ago when they all worked at Eagle at BNA.

 

[belchfire]

Any of the old timers that see this know any of the corpexers that commuted out of JFK or EWR...we had a couple of FO's that went to Continental Express. If you have contact info please PM me...thanks!

The freon system on the jball is a 120 day mel as I recall. They should be written up in Feb., no later than March if they don't work. And yeah, cold is good for engines. A Lycoming O-320 rated to 160 Hp will put out 180 Hp when it's -30 F outside! The airframes like it too. Not so good for true airspeed low but that's where performance we care about counts-close to the ground! Who cares what happens at altitude-you have time to deal with the problem...

As for the questions to my last post...no, they are all straight 340 or 340A and no B or B+ as far as I know-and I know the leadership well enough to guess that they would not go with the best of the lot. If you sent a Mech along and had pilots that would ask the right questions it wouldn't matter cause they would know where to look in the manual to get an answer, experienced with that AC or not. Oil consumption can only be determined after time of operation. That shouldn't preclude parking a POS halfway home and telling the lessor to piss off, especially if you have management that is end goal oriented-they can't achieve their goal with a POS either!

But after so long with only negative activity out of HQ a new type is exciting to everyone, regardless of the condition...I can sympathize with that, even if from the outside I can't justify it.

It goes back to the old saying "you get what you pay for." I didn't invent it, but I've seen the results of managements that are willing to spend a few more bucks up front and those that don't and for the most part it remains true. Both in equipment and people (excluding upper management and their golden parachutes)...if you were to buy a clapped out 1978 Toyota Corolla that's what you get!

Ya got to take care of your people and the tools that they use to get the job done! It doesn't get any more simple than that!

 

[Berkut]

As for the questions to my last post...no, they are all straight 340 or 340A and no B or B+ as far as I know-and I know the leadership well enough to guess that they would not go with the best of the lot.

I meant that there were no B or B+ models available at the time. They were all in service already, so they went with the A's. Not that I think they would have actually spent the money.

 

[WhateverUwant]

I doubt that. There are some B's in IGM. But there was NO WAY Regions was going to spring for them. The first 2 A's they got were the old Fina Air's. If you look at the Viva stuff when it was coming out, they (Viva) had their eyes on 2 A models that were once flown by a Puerto Rican company. 99.9% sure those are the ones 3C ended up with.

 

[8AF]

Do Regions FO get typed or SIC type only?

 

[CopilotDoug]

It's sad when we have FOUR airplanes and we have to cancel flights on a TWO aircraft schedule because all of the aircraft are in mx. It's been said that Continental is having Colgan bring two Saabs up to Cleveland. Does anyone smell a contract burning?

 

[belchfire]

It's sad when we have FOUR airplanes and we have to cancel flights on a TWO aircraft schedule because all of the aircraft are in mx. It's been said that Continental is having Colgan bring two Saabs up to Cleveland. Does anyone smell a contract burning?

Oh Dear God...well, good luck guys...those other saabs might be for the stuff that Regions didn't get awarded.

 

[BlackPilot628]

Get out while you can!

 

[belchfire]

Get out while you can!

Well, we started saying that in January of 2002...not that it isn't good advice or anything...kids, sheese, can't teach 'em anything, can't shoot 'em!

hehehehe...