USA Today Article About Regional Airlines

jynxyjoe said:
I don't have a crystal ball, but I thinj it's likely you'll see a continuation of current policy. If the 50seater can't get to you're small town from delta, it won't get there from United either. So drive 3.5 hours to the next airport. We already know yu can't pay more for the ticket becuase you'll simply drive 3.5 hours or not go at all. Now this may all change for small towns but I doubt it.

For middling sized cities you'll see two 88's or two 717's instead of four RJs.

Passengers on the whole aren't making a ton more is year than the last. So they can't pay the extra costs for continued RJ service. So we don't really need the 50 seater feed when Americans can drive 3 hours (often much less) instead.

The RJ market may well be a failing or failed model. It's tough to imagine but I honestly believe the RJ flying will be reduced to 3-6k pilots who can make it on 50k-100k, probably their spouses do well, and the other 14-17k will simply fly for the majors or fit in some other way.
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The 9 seater is coming back!
 
flyinggreasemnky said:
The problem is that is not across the board. At Republic, Mesa, GoJet, etc, you can not make anywhere near 50k as a senior FO. I average around 100 hours a month credit at RAH and my take home will probably be $42k, That is working my butt off to make sure I work every holiday (holiday pay), pick up trips from the trade board, etc. I've only got one more raise as an FO coming and it will only be $1.10/hr more.
Yeah, there are CAs that do really well but there are plenty of reserve CAs that are barely making over $50k because they are at min guarantee every month. So its not like most Captains make that much. At RAH because we have no work rules, you probably won't make over $100k until you've been at the company 14 years ($92.54/hr on the 170) and pick up extra flying (90 hours credit a month). At Endeavor, the max payrate is $87/hr for CAs on the 900 which means you would have to credit over 96 hours a month to hit $100k.
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I made 101k at my commuter not including any per diem as a junior rsv guy on 5th or 6th year pay on the 50 seater
 
hook_dupin said:
That too.

If you were smart enough in the sector to make an educated guess as to which firms will be bought out vice which will bust, there'd be a real profit opportunity.
I think the industry will smash down to five or fewer firms inside of five years....

Back to the conversation... there simply isn't much head-room on the income statement for more pay, and revenue increases aren't possible because of contracts.
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That's a hard one to pick. I mean as a pilot (non-regional), even access to these forums could help out investment info. But its hard to sift through the rumors. Truth is a couple years ago I made a little scratch buying Heinz ketchup, I was less experienced then than I am now and had no idea Warren Buffett was looking at buying it, I just liked the financials (I guess Warren Buffet did too). I think I made about $12/share in a very short amount of time. Dumb Luck.

Jafari RastaMan said:
Is this a change? Or more of the same?
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When I was hired at RAH in 2012, I was tempted to buy some stock at about $6.5/share. With a lot of 70 seat RJ flying being released to regionals, combine that with Comair about to die and PNCL fiscally insolvent it became obvious that there would be some shift in regional feed and that RAH would be on the receiving end, and it was. They received Colgan's Q flying, a large portion of PNCL's 50 seat intra Michigan and upstate NY flying, more American -175 flying and I think some more Airways flying also. I passed up though because I felt there were better places to put my money and did okay, if I had put money in RAH it would have doubled, I believe it peaked at about 13-14/share.

Hindsight is always 20/20 and I have no regrets. I've always gone for the steady long term money (think dividends) vs. the quick pop. I could have equally been dead wrong and gotten hammered.
 
SeanD said:
Not a bad article for USA Today. Its mostly about poor pay. Bedford and that terd Roger Cohen make statements.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/today...regional-airlines-as-majors-prosper/15437841/
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Seems to me that solution to these problems require a change in the way regionals and majors do business together. I propose the following:

Move away from the fee for departure model, and go (back) to a marketing/revenue sharing model. Regional brand X pays Major brand Y the equivalent of a "franchise fee," in return for which X gets to use Y's branding and computer reservation system. Brand Y does it's own marketing, operations, maintenance, everything, and keeps the money, less the franchise fee. This puts Brand Y in control of their destiny, while at the same putting the market back into play.
 
Phil Schuyler said:
Seems to me that solution to these problems require a change in the way regionals and majors do business together. I propose the following:

Move away from the fee for departure model, and go (back) to a marketing/revenue sharing model. Regional brand X pays Major brand Y the equivalent of a "franchise fee," in return for which X gets to use Y's branding and computer reservation system. Brand Y does it's own marketing, operations, maintenance, everything, and keeps the money, less the franchise fee. This puts Brand Y in control of their destiny, while at the same putting the market back into play.
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I think that would lead to more regionals failing than the current model. If you've seen the way regional management handles operational issues you want as few decisions in their hands as possible.
 
Screaming_Emu said:
I think that would lead to more regionals failing than the current model. If you've seen the way regional management handles operational issues you want as few decisions in their hands as possible.
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That's probably true. But since the current business model seems destined for failure as well, it make sense to try other options.
 
Phil Schuyler said:
Seems to me that solution to these problems require a change in the way regionals and majors do business together. I propose the following:

Move away from the fee for departure model, and go (back) to a marketing/revenue sharing model. Regional brand X pays Major brand Y the equivalent of a "franchise fee," in return for which X gets to use Y's branding and computer reservation system. Brand Y does it's own marketing, operations, maintenance, everything, and keeps the money, less the franchise fee. This puts Brand Y in control of their destiny, while at the same putting the market back into play.
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The break even point on a CRJ is about 75%. If you go to a branding model, nobody is going to fly to a whole lot of the smaller airports out there in a RJ and they certainly aren't going to do it 4 times a day. The big boys still want coverage in a lot of those cities (in the name of their route maps) so they either have to pony up the money to cover the empty seats (FFD model), go to a smaller plane/company (402/CapeAir) or do it themselves and use the money making trunk routes to offset the costs.
 
PhilosopherPilot said:
Stay profitable? You mean become profitable (for some of them). I think XJT is going to declare bankruptcy before too long.
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Unlikely and unnecessary, and not without taking Inc. with it, as I understand it.

That operation can be trivially wound down. Indeed, it is being wound down as airplanes leave the property.
 
amorris311 said:
They pay differently than the airlines. I have flown with several people who say they took a major paycut coming to the airlines from CapeAir.
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With overtime yes,

Minimum guarantee is only 31,200 first year before tax for a captain and your base changes through out the year. Hard to make that life style work well.
 
T/O w/FSII said:
With overtime yes,

Minimum guarantee is only 31,200 first year before tax for a captain and your base changes through out the year. Hard to make that life style work well.
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Hu, 31k? Makes me wonder what all the fuss is about. Is second year pay a jump?
 
T/O w/FSII said:
With overtime yes,

Minimum guarantee is only 31,200 first year before tax for a captain and your base changes through out the year. Hard to make that life style work well.
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That's about 8,000 dollars more than the average first year airline pilot. The base change thing happens a lot too at the airlines. Now granted not a frequently as CapeAir but I think you get the point. Economies of scale should have the first year airline pilot making a lot more.
 
T/O w/FSII said:
With overtime yes,

Minimum guarantee is only 31,200 first year before tax for a captain and your base changes through out the year. Hard to make that life style work well.
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Maybe that's what it works out to on paper, but I doubt there would be as many 9K lifers in the northeast as there are if that was a real world W2 number. I think that given the ability to only generate revenue for the company 9 people at a time they do pretty well. Of course I'm sure they like the rest of the middle class have seen wages fail to rise enough to equal inflation over the last 20 years or so but yeah.
 
jynxyjoe said:
Hu, 31k? Makes me wonder what all the fuss is about. Is second year pay a jump?
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32,280 if my math checks out. I don't get it either?

amorris311 said:
That's about 8,000 dollars more than the average first year airline pilot. The base change thing happens a lot too at the airlines. Now granted not a frequently as CapeAir but I think you get the point. Economies of scale should have the first year airline pilot making a lot more.
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Agreed. But still pretty piss poor for anyone with ATP mins. It bums me out.
 
Roger Roger said:
I doubt there would be as many 9K lifers in the northeast as there are if that was a real world W2 number.
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Worse things than flying a 402 in the northeast and home every night. Although, for the northeast, it'd better be easy to grab that overtime up if 32k is what you can expect for your troubles.
 
Autothrust Blue said:
Unlikely and unnecessary, and not without taking Inc. with it, as I understand it.

That operation can be trivially wound down. Indeed, it is being wound down as airplanes leave the property.
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Is that what they're telling you guys?

Pretty sure that due to his past connections Philosopher has a way better idea on what is going on over here than you do.
 
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