Mesa & ATP partnership

Serious question: At what point do we realize that "regionals" as we now know them are not really regional at all? They simply exist as a means for the Legacies to dump low yield markets/routes off their balance sheets. The contract between the regional and the legacy is essentially a hedge made by the legacy that says "On this route, for this period of time, we expect to lose X dollars." so rather than taking the risk, they pay the ::air quotes:: regional ::/air quotes:: that much money over the life of the contract. For the carrier providing the lift, they are forced with making a bottom line and that often means that everything has to be bargain basement. I realize this is a little bit of a simplification, but it's the reality of the business today. "Regional" flying is no longer necessarily regional, and it will not get better, especially not with the new ATP rules, which have just created a pipeline whereby you have to go to one of these carriers before you can move on anywhere else.

Really, the carriers can have you by the balls if they want, because Mesa's contract is a one year deal, well soon some other low yield carrier (I'm not calling them regionals anymore, they're Low Yield Carriers now) is going to see enough pilots signing on to Mesa that they'll say "hey, let's offer what might appear to be a slightly better deal, cause we have KOOOLER JEEETZ! ...but make it 1.5 years" And then pilots will, grudgingly, start accepting 1.5 year terms. And then 2 year terms. Where does it end?

This is what happened when legacy unions gave up scope, and this is the inevitable downward spiral of our profession.
 
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