Umm, no. Quick history lesson kids. Republic is both an airline and the overall holding company that operates Chautauqua, Shuttle America, and Republic Airways. The original Republic Airways was going to be a strictly non-union E145 operator after the original CHQ pilots told Bedford hell no to J4J back in 2002-2003.
The benevolent Reverend and his management team responded by posting a list of tail numbers that would be sent to Republic and furloughing a few CHQ pilots. During the ensuing fray, which was co-incident with section 6 negotiations, Chautauqua's EXCO agreed to J4J on the property and secured regional-industry leading scope, when not just Chautauqua but Republic Airways Holdings was bound by one pilot list. This in turn prevented a Freedom/Go-Jets type debacle when E170s started miraculously showing up on property a year later.
In 2003 not a single CHQ pilot believed we'd be flying 70-seaters any more than we thought NASA would out-source the Space Shuttle to us. Giving credit where it was due, however, the Reverend was looking to the future and suddenly we had a deal to fly 145s and 170s for UA. Oops, our agreement with AA and the APA's scope clause did not allow us to fly such heavy metal on the CHQ certificate, thus we needed another certificate. No problem, we'll just fire up Republic again. Oops, it's harder to start a certificate then we thought?? Cool, we'll just buy this tiny Saab operator called Shuttle America (who happens to be flying a bunch of ex-CHQ Saabs), integrate their pilots, dump the Saabs and presto, instant 170 operator.
However, management kept working on getting the Republic certificate running, because now DALPA's scope is capping this new shiny jet at 70 seats, and we want to fly a few for US Airways with 72 seats. So, certificate number 3 finally appears, and now the same holding company and pilot group is spread over 3 different groups. Us pilots seem to think it's strange to start a certificate with 4 airframes, until shady shenanigans ensue involving Doug Parker, Reverend Bedford, and some goats, and suddenly Mid-Atlantic ceases to exist and Republic is flying all sorts of E170s for US. (Ps, kudos to U-ALPA for allowing even MORE narrow-body jobs and jets off the property).
You're welcome for this brief lesson of one of the few scope victories ever for a regional pilot group (albeit one that viciously highlights the continued decline of mainline flying). Please return to your regularly scheduled mindless bashing.
