The problem with this segment of the industry is that is has NO WAY to increase revenue. The majors play these price slashing, low balling games and REDUCE their revenue intake, all while their longevity costs go up year after year. The only way to keep up is to reduce costs. This model is dead, and everybody needs to get out. Let Delta find another way to connect their passengers. Maybe they think they can beef up Pinnacle and GoJets just enough to do the flying they want done. Let them see if they can. Skywest's only long-term mode of survival is to go alone or buy all the others in the market to eliminate the competition and hoard all the qualified pilots.
I just did a quick Google search and found that Delta Airlines' year over year revenue growth averaged 14.11% over the past 5 years. Delta is doing just fine, and managed to find enough $$ to give all their pilots some nice fat raises. But they are doing it on the backs of the regionals, who are making less and less per year.
Well, the market is reacting, and the imbalance is starting to self-correct. Delta
cannot continue this business model, plain and simple. Delta will see flight after flight simply cancelled, due to lack of regional pilots. At some point, even Delta will realize the need to open up the regional purse strings (even if it means cutbacks elsewhere). Either the regionals will disappear (highly doubtful), or the extreme pay imbalance will disappear. One or the other WILL happen.*
*There is one other possibility, that the majors start some kind of ab-initio program where they sponsor all the pilots they need right out of high-school, as in, DL will pay for all your training, in exchange for maybe 7 years of indentured slave-labor. BUT, due to the 1500/1200/1000 hour rule, such a program would take a couple of years to fully implement, at best. And could they create a big enough ponzi-scheme to provide all the flight-hours necessary for all the applicants? Long term, it would be doubtful. So I really think pilots have the upper hand going forward here.
