American Eagle told to play ball or become Comair-II

ZapBrannigan said:
I think you get a pass for flying stuff they make action movies about.
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Yeah, but is there really "skill-transfer" FROM flying a so-sekrit-you-can't-tell-your-Mom-about-it aircraft carrying horrific munitions (and God knows what else) that's in imminent danger of being blotted out of the sky at any moment TO correctly tuning the ILS and watching the autopilot fly it down to 200ft? These are the questions we need to be asking ourselves! Safety First! :D
 
Polar742 said:
Have you ridden in one? If you haven't, as a pax, I'll take that over a 73, tied maybe with the bus cabin.
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I flew on a RAH Frontier 190 from DEN to LGB a few years ago after one of their fugly baby buses from BNA to DEN. It was by far more comfy and quieter than the bus. Id have to say, it was probably the most comfortable Ive ever been on any domestic airplane.
 
SeanD said:
Id have to say, it was probably the most comfortable Ive ever been on any domestic airplane.
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Have you seen some of the posts here? The most comfortable I've ever been on any airplane is when I'm in the cockpit alone, or at least with the F/O unconscious (long story).
 
Boris Badenov said:
Have you seen some of the posts here? The most comfortable I've ever been on any airplane is when I'm in the cockpit alone, or at least with the F/O unconscious (long story).
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I say son, surely here you employ an artifice of intrigue. Leave us not panting in anticipation... Do tell.
 
Boris Badenov said:
Dunno. I think the goalposts tend to move. I know a couple of guys (and have "heard of" a LOT more) who have gone from the right seat of an RJ (after a long stay in said seat, to be fair) to the right seat of the "big iron". The two I know of went overseas, but I'm told a lot of the recent hires at US Air (or whatever they're calling it today) fit that description. I'm not sure TPIC means what it used to...seems like now the focus is more on 121, crew, glass, types, etc. Bad for me, good for others, but it makes a certain sort of sense.
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Meh, glass is glass. Turbines are turbines. Of course nuances exist. But it kinda boils down to all the sound and fury found in computer debates. Mac/PC... who cares. They'll be different in 5 years anyway. Me, I'd far rather have a guy who knows what makes an airplane fly, what makes it stop flying and knows how to control an airplane than some cat with a gazillion hrs of glass time. Same with turbines... Really? As I've said before, if we did things right in aviation, everyone would solo in jets and have to work his way up to multi-engine pistons. Give me a good stick who's fun to drink a beer with every day to Sunday.
Takes 20 minutes to transition a guy from steam gauges to glass. The other way around? They'll find rocks ricki tick.
I must be getting old. :(
 
MikeD said:
Agree, while valuable, I also think the goalposts tend to move on the requirement to possess said value; all dependant on whether the hiring is good, or the hiring is few, at the particular month/year.
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Agreed. I left my regional after 4.5 years and still as a RJ FO. Had I stayed, I would still be a 6+ year FO. The thing one must realize is that if there are regional pilots with 4000-6000+ hrs and are still FOs, it probably isn't their fault because they still haven't had an upgrade opportunity due to mergers/recession/Age 65.
 
MikeD said:
Agree. The mainlines bred the regionals when they got aircraft too big to go everywhere they wanted to go and still wanted those routes. America West used to fly their own mainline-owned and mainline-flown Dash-8s, then they wanted bigger planes and contracted out their former Dash 8 routes to Mesa, who replaced them with 1900C/Ds, then later Dash 8s again. Like you say, all the regional eggs are in one basket; their money comes from only one place: their parent carrier. And that money is generally a fixed amount with little to no flexibility....the flexibility being the two areas you mention: executive and employee. There's simply nowhere to get extra money to do anything more; not unless a "American Eagle Cargo" division is created, or the like. So regionals are screwed, as are their employees, at the will of the mainlines; who are happy to whipsaw them against one another like a Roman coliseum of slaves. Just not the place you want to be. For some, it was all they could get, being hired with little to no TT, and having next to zero TPIC (for places requiring it), so they're stuck.
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I agree to everything you've said here...

My theory is that (and I know this is a pipe dream), regionl airlines should not be publicly traded companies. The execs have a legal obligation to the shareholder to provide a ROI, and with what you just said, the only place an increased ROI is gonna come from is out of the line employees' pockets. The execs, in their infinite wisdom, won't decrease their salaries... exactly the opposite, they'll increase them because they increased the ROI because they cut our pay.
If they were a public company this pressure wouldn't exist so much. Yes of course the owner(s) would still want an ROI, but the specter of the shareholding public wouldn't be moaning in the background.
 
Polar742 said:
Wholly-owneds should be integrated under merger rules as they are certificated 121 carriers acquired by another certificated 121 carrier.
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Wisdom from my neighbor, here. That said, this obvious (and one would think legally required) move would just push more RJs to the bottomfeeder pseudo-indies. Ultimately, and I think deep down everyone knows this, the only "solutions" (if indeed there are any...Markets are a powerful force indeed) are to either control the supply of meat in the seat ourselves or to set some sort of governmental, artificial price controls (eg. the much maligned "regulation era"). Both of those seem to fit in to the "snowball in hell" side of the likelihood curve.

As far as I can see, the only thing that is likely to improve "the profession" (whatever that means) is to at once increase the bar to entry (ideally through increased selection criteria rather than more money plunked down by the enter-ee) and educate, educate, educate. And that's where the Interwebz really shine. You can't very well walk in to a flight school and start pouring out the kool-aide cups of every starry-eyed (or squinty-eyed, if you prefer) little dreamer. At least not if you want to stay clear of the Law. But you can certainly tell it exactly like it is on JC, or any number of other places.

Then it's up to the next generation of appliance-operators. Or so it seems to me, anyway.
 
Polar742 said:
Wholly-owneds should be integrated under merger rules as they are certificated 121 carriers acquired by another certificated 121 carrier.
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Except they aren't owned/acquired by another certificated 121 carrier. They are owned by a holding company that happens to own another 121 certificated carrier. Prior to the merger with American, USAirways Group owned 3 airlines. USAirway, PSA and PDT. Single carrier status doesn't apply to holding companies (even when you share training facilities, instructors and HR as was discovered during the TSA/GoJet debacle).
 
BobDDuck said:
Except they aren't owned/acquired by another certificated 121 carrier. They are owned by a holding company that happens to own another 121 certificated carrier. Prior to the merger with American, USAirways Group owned 3 airlines. USAirway, PSA and PDT. Single carrier status doesn't apply to holding companies (even when you share training facilities, instructors and HR as was discovered during the TSA/GoJet debacle).
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I think a holding company was set up for all mergers and acquisitions, not just 121 pilots treated like second class citizens.
 
Eventually one, or some, of these companies will develop another alter-ego company.

When that happens, I'll be number one to apply for a direct entry captainancy.

Bahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahah
 
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