SkyWest/Republic & Scope

[damnflyboy]

Our #2 guy came into our recurrent ground and stated the following:

If scope is not relaxed by mainline carriers in the next wave of negotiations (which most airline CEO's state is a realistic assumption, he added), companies like SkyWest Inc and Republic Airways will have a choice: shrink and die or compete and survive.

Now, why would he say something like this?

 

[sstearns2]

Sounds like managment BS to give the ducks something to quack about. It means anything to anyone.

Cheers,
Scott

 

[Jetjockey]

Sounds like management is seeing the writing on the wall. The combined UAL CAL group will not relax scope. This is priority number 1 for the JCBA. Just look at the 1400 job cuts and career stagnation at UAL.This isn't like the months following September 11th, give backs are over! The concession stand is closed. Get your turbine pic now, the regionals will be consolidating to survive, not to grow.

 

[GuppyWN]

Sorry boys but I don't plan on voting on ANYTHING that relaxes the scope and codeshare we have in our contract.

I'd prefer we buy them ourselves and fly them ourselves - giving guys who want career progression the chance to interview and fly them.

Gup

 

[General Lee]

Our #2 guy came into our recurrent ground and stated the following:

If scope is not relaxed by mainline carriers in the next wave of negotiations (which most airline CEO's state is a realistic assumption, he added), companies like SkyWest Inc and Republic Airways will have a choice: shrink and die or compete and survive.

Now, why would he say something like this?

Realistic??? What? Mainline pilots are MORE inclined to create tougher Scope. Why? We have all watched this industry go to heck thanks to RJs. The main reason Scope was relieved was because BKs forced it. Legacies have been doing better, paying off some debt, and contracts are coming due. DL's contract is up in 2012, UAL/CAL are doing their joint contract now (they really want to tighten scope big time), USAir wants to eventually get an agreement with their own pilots (if they get it together), etc. Doesn't really sound good for regionals, unless they try to buy everyone up and create monopolies. But, there isn't just one monopoly now, there are a few---Pinnacle (plus Colgan and Mesaba), SkyWest (plus ASA and XJT), Republic, and the Mesa group. What does that mean? There will still be whipsaws against each other. So, unless the large Regionals go for an "Independence" like solo project, they will start to suffer, and new FAA rest/fatigue rules and new hiring minimums just won't help the situation. And don't forget the new liability law that now places the legacy liable for a crash at the Regional level. That won't help either. Oh well.


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[crj567]

Realistic??? What? Mainline pilots are MORE inclined to create tougher Scope. Why? We have all watched this industry go to heck thanks to RJs. The main reason Scope was relieved was because BKs forced it. Legacies have been doing better, paying off some debt, and contracts are coming due. DL's contract is up in 2012, UAL/CAL are doing their joint contract now (they really want to tighten scope big time), USAir wants to eventually get an agreement with their own pilots (if they get it together), etc. Doesn't really sound good for regionals, unless they try to buy everyone up and create monopolies. But, there isn't just one monopoly now, there are a few---Pinnacle (plus Colgan and Mesaba), SkyWest (plus ASA and XJT), Republic, and the Mesa group. What does that mean? There will still be whipsaws against each other. So, unless the large Regionals go for an "Independence" like solo project, they will start to suffer, and new FAA rest/fatigue rules and new hiring minimums just won't help the situation. And don't forget the new liability law that now places the legacy liable for a crash at the Regional level. That won't help either. Oh well.


Bye Bye--General Lee

Not a chance, Gen... They are separate corporations.

 

[General Lee]

Sorry boys but I don't plan on voting on ANYTHING that relaxes the scope and codeshare we have in our contract.

I'd prefer we buy them ourselves and fly them ourselves - giving guys who want career progression the chance to interview and fly them.

Gup

Do you mean a STAPLE? Ridiculous. That will NEVER fly again, GUP. The Bond ammendment (Sp?) also won't allow it. If you merge, you WILL go to arbitration.


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[Jetjockey]

Yeah, I don't think the new law will cover that, I think the new law makes it a requirment at the time of purchase it is made known that travel will be made on a codeshare partner.

 

[Max Q]

Good. That's what we all want.

 

[General Lee]

Yeah, I don't think the new law will cover that, I think the new law makes it a requirment at the time of purchase it is made known that travel will be made on a codeshare partner.

It actually may not be a law yet, but it probably will if the Colgan families have any more say, and they are the ones to push for new rest and fatigue rules which will now be in place within one year. If the law doesn't happen in the near future, it may if another crash occurs, and I bet the legacies would like to have more say in the training of the regionals, or just take over the programs and have legacy pilots start out on larger RJs.


Senator favors liability by major air carrier in a regional crash

By Jerry Zremski

Published:June 18 2010, 7:17 AM

Updated: August 21, 2010, 6:46 AM
WASHINGTON — The plane that crashed in Clarence Center 16 months ago had the name “Continental” emblazoned on it — and now some lawmakers are talking as if that ought to really mean something.
A day after Continental’s chairman tried to deflect blame for a crash that claimed 50 lives, a key senator Thursday suggested that big airlines such as Continental should bear legal responsibility for what happens on the subcontracting airlines that run their regional flights.

“I believe that the liability ought to be assumed by the carrier whose name is on the plane,” Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, D-N. D., said at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the proposed merger between Continental and United Airlines.

Dorgan, who is chairman of the Aviation Subcommittee, said that “there is no one level of safety” between major carriers such as Continental and the subcontractors they hire, such as Colgan Air, which ran Continental Connection Flight 3407, the plane that crashed in Clarence Center in February 2009.

“We’ve learned plenty from the Colgan crash, and much of it is very frightening,” Dorgan said. The idea of shifting legal liability to the deeper-pocketed major airlines surely must have been very frightening to Jeffery A. Smisek, the Continental chief executive officer, who told a House subcommittee Wednesday that Continental was not responsible for how subcontractors such as Colgan train their pilots.

Smisek sat stonily through Dorgan’s remarks Thursday, never reverting to the sort of comments he made a day earlier, when he said he never knew that Colgan had failed to give its pilots hands-on training in a key component of the plane’s stall-recovery system.

“We weren’t aware of that training deficiency,” Smisek said. “That’s the responsibility of the FAA” — the Federal Aviation Administration.
Smisek’s comments enraged members of the Families of Continental Flight 3407, as well as Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N. Y.“It was outrageous that Continental tried to wash their hands of airline safety,” Schumer said. “The families deserve an apology.”
Of course, airlines such as Continental might be a bit more aware of what their outsourcing partners were doing if the big airlines were legally responsible for a crash of a regional airliner bearing the major carrier’s name.

But that idea isn’t included in aviation safety legislation that’s currently moving through Congress. Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., first suggested shifting liability to the major airlines at a hearing in December.
By then, the safety legislation was already well on its way to being shaped, said Kevin Kuwik, one of the key members of the Families of Continental Connection Flight 3407, which has lobbied for the safety changes.

But if there’s another crash of a regional, and another group of families forced to lobby for safety legislation, “this is definitely the kind of thing they ought to look at,” Kuwik said of shifting the liability to the major carriers.

Then again, judging by Smisek’s attitude, it’s likely the major airlines would do everything they can to stop such a move.“All the good things in life come from profitability,” Smisek said during Thursday’s hearing.






Do you think the Legacies want to go through this at all? That is why some airlines are trying to limit their liability, and maybe consider flying some of the larger RJs themselves. (as stated in a recent DL newhire class) Knowing this is a possibility (liability), may scare the legacies into action before it happens again.



Bye Bye--General Lee