US Airways is expected to report the second-biggest loss among domestic carriers
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regulation
wings396
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It is obvious that you haven't been around the industry for a long time. Take a look at some of the older photos on Airliners.net, and you may be shocked to see just how common it was for most airlines to operate big equipment into smaller cities. There are plenty of 707's, DC-8's, CV-880's, and 727's that were flown just about anywhere that had the runways to handle them. As Jim said, there were enough passengers to fill the seats at that time. In those days there was no Express flying to take traffic away from Mainline flying. Once the RJ era began, that all changed. It is common knowledge that the onset of the RJ's was nothing more than a way for the airlines to screw mainline people out of decent paying jobs from top to bottom. Today we have "Express Jets" flying around most of the system on routes that were once mainline. These so called Express flights now carry anywhere from 50-76 passengers, with their employees earning wages just above poverty level. It is just recently that Delta has started to replace some 50 seat Express flying with Mainline, and they were the ones that kicked off the RJ craze years ago.
To sum it all up for you, there were and are small cities that can support larger A/C when and if they are used. The trend has been to replace 2 mainline flights a day with 4-5 Express ones with hopes that the passengers don't notice what has taken place. Great we have more flights with less seats adding to the ATC congestion all over the country.
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SPOT ON ...... I HAVE BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME ....... Also gone today is any creativity when it comes to routes. There use to be a lot of it... now it's simpler to "only" think in terms of hubs. Southwest is the only airline still being creative. By passing hubs "when you can" creates havoc for your competitor if you know what you're doing.
The proliferation of small commuter planes (first props then regional jets) occurred just so the airlines could screw the mainline employees? Uh-huh.
During the regulated era (until 1978), most medium and small towns had just one or perhaps two airlines, flying a couple of mainline flights daily. And even if the town had two airlines, they did not compete, as the CAB regulated everything about the air service in that town.
Once the CAB no longer regulated where and when airlines could fly, many medium sized towns saw new competition from several airlines. Didn't take long for most of those airlines to figure out that there weren't enough airlines for everyone to fill DC-9s, 727s and 737s, so turboprops were ordered to replace a lot of mainline flying. Some medium sized towns went from 3-6 mainline flights a day on one or two airlines to as many as 40-60 regional flights a day on 8-10 different airlines.
Yes, those small cities could support larger planes as long as they were the only airline (or one of the only two airlines). Just two mainline flights a day? Hope your meeting doesn't run long - because then you'll be stuck in Podunk until the next morning. Most business travelers value frequency over size of plane. I certainly do.
wings396
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"The proliferation of small commuter planes (first props then regional jets) occurred just so the airlines could screw the mainline employees? Uh-huh"
At one time a commuter plane was far below the seating capacity of a Mainline one, usually 25-35 seats. Today we have Express A/C that are the size of an F-100, F-28, or DC-9 flying around with Express employees handling them for crap wages all the way up to the flight crews. I'm not saying that the RJ's were built to take jobs away from Mainline people, but the Airlines certainly used them as a tool to do exactly that. We made a profit on many routes using Mainline A/C, and that was long after deregulation came to be. Delta has publicly stated that the once golden 50 seat RJ's are not all that economical, and they are eliminating a good portion of them as a result. Southwest is living proof that you can operate a successful airline without any RJ's in the fleet. I once worked in a smaller station that had 737's, F-100's, MD-80's, and they ran full most of the time. We had 5 going to PIT, and 3 to CLT on a daily basis for many years. I had been told that the yield on our PIT market was one of the highest on the system. Granted that the demise of the PIT Hub became an issue, but cramming people onto a friggen RJ to CLT is not all that great....
At one time a commuter plane was far below the seating capacity of a Mainline one, usually 25-35 seats. Today we have Express A/C that are the size of an F-100, F-28, or DC-9 flying around with Express employees handling them for crap wages all the way up to the flight crews. I'm not saying that the RJ's were built to take jobs away from Mainline people, but the Airlines certainly used them as a tool to do exactly that. We made a profit on many routes using Mainline A/C, and that was long after deregulation came to be. Delta has publicly stated that the once golden 50 seat RJ's are not all that economical, and they are eliminating a good portion of them as a result. Southwest is living proof that you can operate a successful airline without any RJ's in the fleet. I once worked in a smaller station that had 737's, F-100's, MD-80's, and they ran full most of the time. We had 5 going to PIT, and 3 to CLT on a daily basis for many years. I had been told that the yield on our PIT market was one of the highest on the system. Granted that the demise of the PIT Hub became an issue, but cramming people onto a friggen RJ to CLT is not all that great....
that is my point deregulation allow your point
It is obvious that I fell under the “Labor Protective Provisions” “Standard LPPs “Allegheny-Mohawk LPPs” LOOK IT UP HOT SHOT when my station closed(1978) because deregulation allowing small and medium stations to go express
Got the bogey number to prove it
Don’t need to look I was there
You think
Airlines were secured by the CBA. There is two core positions in the airline industry: the first is a free market approach, and the second is a regulatory approach.
Under regulation, prices were fixed and competition artificially limited to ensure airline profitability. If operating costs increased, due to higher fuel costs or more expensive labor contracts, prices, in most instances, were correspondingly raised. Supply of air service was limited to prevent wasted costs of operating empty flights. The CAB limited supply by refusing to recognize new airlines and by only authorizing new routes when it found a demonstrated need for more service.
With airlines making profits, airline workers were able to negotiate good compensation packages, including stable and increasing wages, secure employment, good working conditions, and reliable pensions. Moreover, there was greater stability in the airline industry with less strikes, bankruptcies, mergers and acquisitions, and less firings.
Exactly, I lived it
Exactly, and this point needs to be emphasized.
The shift happened not because of some anti-labor plot, but because the market prefers higher frequency over larger planes, and will not support both.
(Plus, it could be argued that labor itself brought on what is now being viewed as an anti-labor plot, through restrictive scope clauses and refusing to work with management to bring the pilots of the smaller aircraft onto what are now referred to as "mainline" CBAs. The unions' positions all but forced management to invent the contemporary commuter / express carrier system with its resulting two tiers of compensation in the industry. Of course then management took advantage of any cost savings it could through that setup. Nice job airline unions!)
SparrowHawk
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Various Scope Clauses did contribute to the number of seats on the early planes. It's one of but not the only reason we have a ton of 50 seat jets out there. Many of the scope clauses at the time were right around that number.
When Management Greed meets union stubbornness it usually ends up with Management winning. One can only speculate what the industry would look like now had there been some flexibility that could have eliminated the current two tier wage system. Makes me wonder if a CRJ-200 or EMB-145 would even exist today.
Oh well!
wings396
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"It is obvious that I fell under the “Labor Protective Provisions” “Standard LPPs “Allegheny-Mohawk LPPs” LOOK IT UP HOT SHOT when my station closed(1978) because deregulation allowing small and medium stations to go express
Got the bogey number to prove it"
Big deal, I got the same stuff as well. If you have been around that long, you shouldn't have to be reminded where 727's did and didn't fly back in the day. Given that Jim flew them, I would tend to take his word on it. Your entire posting makes very little sense from the start.
Got the bogey number to prove it"
Big deal, I got the same stuff as well. If you have been around that long, you shouldn't have to be reminded where 727's did and didn't fly back in the day. Given that Jim flew them, I would tend to take his word on it. Your entire posting makes very little sense from the start.
Travelpro72
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Look around..... who is responsible for express planes with so many seats? Look left, look right
Believe me I was in the 72 every day inside and out pre deregulated era (1978)Want to talk fuel crisis in 1976 and regulation
