Republic to Fly for Midwest

[Eagle757shark]

The only time it could become a "Delta Connection" carrier would be when any plane over 76 seats is gone. That means all of the 717s. If you then add the 12 E170s to the ticket, the amount of 76 seaters the new Delta would operate would get very close to the limit. There is a limit even on 76 seaters, and the merger of DL and NWA actually made the limit tighter, since both Majors already had a stream of them coming online, and a merger gets closer to that magical number. As far as the 717s go, I wouldn't be surprised if NWA goes after the 717s for a DC9 replacement. Remember, our certificates won't be merged for 12 months or so after the date of corporate closing, and Midwest is returning 16 of them at the end of this year. It will be interesting indeed. Sorry to the Midwest pilots.


Bye Bye--General Lee

General, I don't know about your scope, but I do believe that the only reason they kept 9 717s was to keep from having a complete meltdown over at Midwest among the current pilots. Once the E-170s come online, it will be easy to displace those 717s where ever the decision makers want to displace them. I also believe they are doing this to keep the Midwest name in place until the merger between Northwest and Delta are complete. Once Delta has completed their merger and Midwest has acquired their certificate and E-170s, the Midwest and Midwest Connect brand will be changed to Delta connection and the remaining 717s will be sent packing back to Boeing. This will then create another regional feed for Delta out of Milwaukee. Smart move by Delta and Northwest. A $60 million dollar investment through Republic to keep Midwest alive and find an airplane that AirTran will have a hard time competing with in Milwaukee. Keep Midwest alive so AirTran is not able to establish a hub in Milwaukee. Keep Midwest alive long enough to create a regional feed that will eventually feed to the worlds largest airline and complete route structure, smart move...CHECKMATE!

 

[PCL_128]

I wouldn't be surprised if NWA goes after the 717s for a DC9 replacement

I doubt it. I expect an announcement within the next few weeks that AirTran will be taking those aircraft at a heavily discounted lease rate from Boeing and using them in place of additional sold 737 slots.

 

[Captain Morgan]

General, I don't know about your scope, but I do believe that the only reason they kept 9 717s was to keep from having a complete meltdown over at Midwest among the current pilots. Once the E-170s come online, it will be easy to displace those 717s where ever the decision makers want to displace them. I also believe they are doing this to keep the Midwest name in place until the merger between Northwest and Delta are complete. Once Delta has completed their merger and Midwest has acquired their certificate and E-170s, the Midwest and Midwest Connect brand will be changed to Delta connection and the remaining 717s will be sent packing back to Boeing. This will then create another regional feed for Delta out of Milwaukee. Smart move by Delta and Northwest. A $60 million dollar investment through Republic to keep Midwest alive and find an airplane that AirTran will have a hard time competing with in Milwaukee. Keep Midwest alive so AirTran is not able to establish a hub in Milwaukee. Keep Midwest alive long enough to create a regional feed that will eventually feed to the worlds largest airline and complete route structure, smart move...CHECKMATE!

This is the smartest guess IMHO.

 

[carl p]

I agree that the 717s will end up at the Tranny, as additional 73s are sold for a nice profit. I can also see AT mgmt watching very closely to see how they can use similar tactics against the AT pilots.

 

[Eagle757shark]

I agree that the 717s will end up at the Tranny, as additional 73s are sold for a nice profit. I can also see AT mgmt watching very closely to see how they can use similar tactics against the AT pilots.

Carl the way this pilot group just rolls over and lets things happen is scary. TA1 had pay rates for the small jet. Because those rates were there, AirTran management planned on using them. No matter how nice that Fox comes at those chickens in the chicken coupe, he's still going to have a chicken dinner. With the roll over mentality at AirTran among it's pilots, you can be assured the Fox is going to have a good dinner real soon at the pilots EXPENSE!

 

[fam62c]

To my knowledge the Midwest scope clause doesn't restrict the holding company from entering into arrangements with other, non wholly owned carriers; they only control what happens on their certificate and there is no seat limit for code share partners. They have Skywest, now they will have Republic as well. Once RAH is in place they could just get some 100 seat E-jets to add to the 170's and get rid of the Midwest flight operations and the 717's altogether.....all of the flying would be subcontracted. Midwest would be a "virtual" airline with all of it's capacity rented. When the Skywest contract runs out a few years from now just get rid of them and let RAH pick up the slack. It's not an "alter ego" carrier if Midwest has no ownership stake. DAL can keep their ownership stake regardless of the size of planes Midwest has because the DAL pilots allowed that loophole for Midwest during the merger talks with NWA. Delta will have a "marketing agreement" with Midwest but they won't purchase any capacity so the DAL pilots can't say anything.

Let's face it, even if they get the Midwest guys to fly the 170's at RAH rates Midwest will still have high costs because all the pilots (even the FO's) will have tons of longevity so everyone will be at the top of the payscale. There is no way for them to be "cost competitive" with other regionals flying RJ's because the employees are too senior and the overhead is too much for a small operation.

With all the trouble they will be going through to extract concessions from the Midwest guys and add the 170's to the Midwest certificate they could have just as well kept the Skyway certificate and used that vehicle to get the job done with a far more junior pilot group. There was nothing stopping them from doing that in the Midwest scope language. TH is just making this s$%t up as he goes along. RAH is now the THIRD regional airline involved here. They dumped Skyway, they got Skywest involved but they don't want to have them do the "new" RJ flying and now Republic is involved. It's just a never ending, nasty, ugly shell game and TH keeps finding airlines that are willing to jump in bed with him and perpetuate his evil deeds.

 

[FlyWolf]

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[Colonel Savage]

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Linky no worky...

 

[BUDDHA145]

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Yes Wolf isnt working!!! you mind copied/paste...thx

 

[Capt. Kramer]

I doubt it. I expect an announcement within the next few weeks that AirTran will be taking those aircraft at a heavily discounted lease rate from Boeing and using them in place of additional sold 737 slots.

Airtran has 0 growth for the next 18-24 months, that's from BF. I guess anything is possible, but I highly doubt it.