PHL said:
If ALPA had stuck with no jets, you're right - there wouldn't be animosity. There simply would be more pilots furloughed.
Why? The 50 seat jets would still fly with mainline crews.
ML pilots never wanted to fly the 50 jets because it was beneath them. The wages were to low. They wanted their 737s and the like.not a smaller replacement jet. ML carriers could not make money on RJs with ML pilot contracts. It has been long understood that ML Pilots could fly an RJ for free and the carrier still could not make money because of the benefits of not only the pilots but the Mechanics, rampers and CSAs that would service each flight.
That's why MDA finally came around and J4J. MDA nad the others have lower total costs. Benefits, healthcare, retirement etc.
It wasn't until the summer of 2001 when the great sucking sound was heaerd at U that the AAA pilots wanted the RJ flown by there senority list. But alas, then it was too late. For the world then changed forever.
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The great irony of the whole RJ situation is that there is not a single RJ carrier that can really stand on its own. Just look at the losses being generated by Indepenance air.
The 50 or 70 RJ is an expensive aircraft to operate. Wages / benifits are just a fraction of the costs. The companies do not utilize them correctly in the cost sense. They schedule the flights to match mainline hub banks and the aircraft sit around idle much of the time, even more so than mainlaine aircraft.
Boyd group has stated that in the not to distant future when you are a regional carrier and your total sales starts to exceede 1 billion, ie. Comair / MESA than you have to be very careful. The mailine partner says, "Hey wait a minute, I can't go on guaranteeing you a profit per departure, your going to have to take some of the market risk yourself."
This is a symbotic relationship you can't live without a regional partner but you can't keep giving away your profitablility and guarenteeing it to your partner. It doesn't make a business sense.
On a departure basis Rj's are cheap on a seat mile basis RJ's are expensive. The question being brought up in last weeks Aviation Week is what happens when you put a .20 / Mile RJ up against a .06 / mile Canadian Q-400 turboprop, AND drop the ticket price on the Q400 top one third of the price of the RJ seat. There is no doubt about the preference for riding the RJ on a straight comparison. What about on a cost basis? Time will tell.
