I feel like 20 years from now, the bottom feeder regionals will still be around with nonsense like 4 year F/O pay caps, and the good places to work today will be nothing more than examples used in frustrated conversations about days gone by. Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but at this point it all seems very discouraging.
I wouldn't get discouraged. Remember, the regionals have seen unprecedented growth over the last 15 years. The "system" worked just fine for 20 years or so where the "commuters" did the close in regional feed. Quality of life and pay rates were terrible while at these commuters but pretty much nobody stayed more than 3 or 4 years there before moving on to bigger and better things at the majors, or back then, "regional" carriers (like Midwest, old PSA, AirCal, etc). Even as the "regional" carriers of the day were bought up (Morris, AirCal and the like) or went out of business (Big Sky, Midway, Kiwi etc) there was still plenty of movement for guys up the big league players that were left. A slowing economy and then 9/11 stopped all that.
Along with the stopping of movement from the commuters on to the majors there was also a rapid expansion at the regionals as mainline flying, formerly covered by the thousands of pilots who had just been furloughed due to economic reasons, was shifted to the newly arriving 50 seat jet. Suddenly, guys who had planned on staying at a commuter that did flying within 200 miles of a hub only for 5 years had no place to go but at the same time started flying to destinations 500 miles away IN A JET! The contracts, even during the bankruptcy era improved to reflect the new distances flown and the new equipment operated. The huge amounts of money rolling in from mainline players in the form of FFD contracts financed most of these improved CBAs and as long as the costs were less than mainline the money kept rolling in.
We of course know that all changed as mainline contracts were gutted down to bare bones in either really needed or shame bankruptcies. As the costs began to come closer in line to the regional players and the cost of fuel shot up, making the smaller jets less and less cost effective, the regionals became less and less appealing to the mainline partners. All of the sudden FFD contracts weren't so generous. The margins were always thin and with the even more reduced numbers the only place to cut (at the regionals) was wages or longevity. The players that have so far escaped this pinch either have had really low wages to begin with or have had very low longevity scales (Compass and GoJet).
So, the two ways of solving the problem are either slash wages or slash longevity. Wages can only go down so much before you bottom out, especially for FO rates which are too low to begin with. That leaves longevity. The timing for this is almost perfect as the age 65 freeze ending, along with a slowly recovering economy has created a huge demand for pilots at the majors (compared to over the last 14 years).
The new push we are seeing, first at 9E, then at PSA and now at Eagle is slight reductions in pay rate items (insurance, vacation and sick accrual, duty rig changes) and carrot and stick measuers to cut longevity in the form of increased pref hire/flow/guaranteed interview language in exchange for chopping longevity scales at much lower numbers. The huge caveat to all of this is that it only works if the majors continue to hire in the numbers that they are predicting. Like always we are one terrorist event/natural disaster away from the music stopping.
But, if everything works as it should, the new lower longevity caps (4 years for FOs and 12 years for Captains seem to be the norm) won't ever come in to play. Using PSA as an example with about 50 airplanes and 500 pilots (split evenly in half with 250 FOs and 250 CAs), assuming the ONLY attrition is to USAirways (umm... American) per the terms of the deal they just signed, a minimum of 48 pilots a year (4 a month X 12 months) would get hired. That means that in 4 years a brand new pilot would move up 200 numbers, putting them just 50 numbers away from upgrade. There would obviously be other attrition either out of the industry or to other mainline carriers) which would increase the movement. Another 5 years (9 total) and in theory the new hire is at the very top of the list and should be interviewing at Airways (American) per the terms of the letter, well before they reach the 12 year pay cap.
Again, this is contingent on at least 4 a month moving on, indefinitely, but, based on what is currently projected going forward, that is a safe assumption. The numbers at Eagle are even bigger, although their pilot group is bigger so it may work out about the same, if not better.
I'm not saying the deal Eagle is getting is a good one, but I am saying that the new push will be all about decreasing longevity at the regionals as a cost savings measure. And the way they are doing it by guaranteeing a certain amount of movement off the top every year is beneficial to the pilot group as well.
