Precision Airlines?

[RJcasualty]

Yup. The scuttlebutt making the rounds tonight is that "Envoy" has been scrapped in favor of "Precision". This is hilarious because if you google "Precision" it takes you to a charter outfit based in Dar Es Salam. <https://www.precisionairtz.com/index.php?id=43>  Could the hired AAG marketing flacks been in such a hurry that they failed elementary research?  If ALPA MEC rejects the latest sub-standard cram down, the 60 shiny 175's promised, together with the existing CRJ-700 fleet would go away and Real Eagle would be left to whither on the vine with the remaining 50 seaters--- largely manned by topped out senior pilots. As Eolsen wrote earlier, maybe the company wouldn't be averse to such a scenario, which I would label as cleverly grotesque. There should be a big announcement on Friday. Hopefully the media will be in attendance to ask some tough questions, such as the viability of an operation condemned to die. 

 

[B727guy]

Precision Airlines (RP) was a commuter airline based in New York state that later became part of American Eagle.  Why reuse a company name.  It's like the new Republic Airlines.  Whenever I hear the name Republic Airlines, I think of the company that came to be as a result of the merger of Southern Airways and North Central Airlines.  To me, reusing a company name in the same industry shows a terrible lack of creativity.

 

[IORFA]

Maybe the same fools in London who failed to see that the "flight symbol" looks like the Greyhound logo failed to google the same!

 

[eolesen]

Re-using a brand name you already know may not show creativity, but it's the only sure way to protect the name from being used by someone else.

Imagine the confusion if KIA decided it wanted to start marketing a line of cars called Pontiac or Plymouth (not that either name was that valuable to begin with).

 

[RJcasualty]

By coining a term (Comair II) derived from DAL's shameful treatment of Comair several years ago, the Tempe Crowd is utterly convinced that the same tactic will work. The strategy, buttressed by tiny, wholly-owned PSA's pilots recent falling for an outright bribe, has emboldened the new tenants at HDQ to shove down a variant of the PSA bribe on Real AE. DP's cynical ploy in light of profound federal regulatory changes and looming pilot supply and demand issues is truly cheeky. On top of this, several AE big shots have recently sold themselves over to Republic. The upshot being that ongoing contract discussions at RAH were suddenly put on ice, ostensibly to wait out the end game at AE. The stench of it all is breath-taking.

 

[eolesen]

Who sold themselves to Republic? Names, please...

If you're referring to Dan Garton, that's really old news. Dan was on borrowed time pretty much from the day Arpey resigned in Nov 2011 until now. There are also senior people at the VP & Director level at Eagle (but on AA payroll because that's how it worked for wholly owned carriers) who were likely out of jobs because of the merger. It's also hardly ground-shaking news for folks to take along a few friends when they change companies.

Seems to me with this whole line of discussion, you're looking for a crisis that may or may not really be there.

Regionals are used to bidding against each other. Despite that, the two largest independents are cash positive.

What Comair proved is that wholly owned carriers haven't figured out how to operate as efficiently as the independents. That's for at least two reasons, starting with
1) management transplants from the big airline who don't seem to see a problem with replicating all the overhead costs they're used to having at mainline, and
2) labor thinking that they're entitled to more thanks to the parent company's perceived deeper pockets.

There's also the issue of the wholly owned having less ability to push back when the parent makes unreasonable demands...

 

[FWAAA]

I disagreed with Parker and Kirby's demands last June to the Eagle pilots that their bankruptcy concessions weren't enough, especially given the potential shortage of qualified pilots in the pipeline.   It looks penny-wise and pound-foolish to me for Parker/Kirby to worry about saving pennies on the regional feed when he just paid the legacy US pilots their retroactive pay (to bring them up to legacy AA payscales).   The US pilots said that the MOU would result in $1.6 billion in improvements for them over six years, or an average of $267 million a year.
 
Yes, the legacy US pilots, both East and West, were woefully underpaid and it's great that they've been able to finally get paid more.   But if they can be handed $267 million more per year (and that includes for 8.5 months of 2013), then beating up the PSA/Piedmont/Eagle pilots for a few dollars more looks cheap, miserly and short-sighted.   
 
All that said, American Eagle Airlines, MQ,  needs to change its name to something else to avoid customer confusion.    No other airline uses a regional partner that shares the name of the regional brand.   Who cares what name Eagle chooses?    Call it Simmons, or WingsWest or Flagship or whatever.    It simply doesn't matter.

 

[RJcasualty]

The financials of AE were always murky to me since it was a fee per departure set-up. The impression was that the operation made money, but always not enough to satisfy the suits. Now that DG has moved over to RAH with a handsome severance, he appears to be parcel of an RAH holding pattern that would impair the pilots bargaining position at his former employer--- not to mention his own RAH pilots. Call me naive, but I thought ethics courses in were still taught in business school. FWAA correctly points out the chump change in question. Not only does it make sense, but it's a good investment that would re-invigorate flagging interest in the pilot profession. 

 

[eolesen]

Dan's just taking a seat on RAH's board. As an outside director, you do realize he has no involvement in the day to day operations, right?...

Outside directors are essentially there to manage the CEO and executive officers and look out for the shareholders. They don't get into the minutia of pilot negotiations or labor pricing models.

 

[NewHampshire Black Bears]

Eric,
I heard years ago, that Garton was a POLE SMOKER.
Any truth to that rumor  ?

 

[eolesen]

What's your obsession with finding out who might be gay, Bears?.....

I spent a lot of time around Dan when he was in charge of airports, and never once got that impression.

More to the point, I doubt Bryan Bedford would have sought him out for a board seat if he knew Dan had a preference for the other team.

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

What's your obsession with finding out who might be gay, Bears?.....

I spent a lot of time around Dan when he was in charge of airports, and never once got that impression.

More to the point, I doubt Bryan Bedford would have sought him out for a board seat if he knew Dan had a preference for the other team.

Oh please. In this climate of "politically correct" I could see a company doing that just for PR.
 
Political correctness is nothing more than a libtard's version of censorship. 

 

[eolesen]

You obviously don't know who Bryan Bedford is... or Jerry Atkin.