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'Vendors Competing Against Vendors'
US regional airlines must fight each other to win new business from their major "partners."
By Sandra Arnoult
Air Transport World, May 2007, p.26
REGIONAL AIRLINES IN the US have been forced to find new resiliency as they respond to mainline carriers' increasing demands for lower costs. No longer partners in the traditional sense of the word, they have become interchangeable suppliers of commodity lift to the legacy airlines under the fee-for-departure arrangements that reshaped the industry in the 1990s.
"These guys are vendors competing against other vendors," says Doug Abbey, an analyst with The Velocity Group, while one regional airline CEO describes the current climate as "hypercompetitive."
The new reality is quite different from the one experienced in the first five years of the 21st century when business was booming and robust orders for regional jets or fleet restructuring were de rigueur. Faced with the collapse in yield after the dot.com meltdown and 9/11, mainline carriers downsized and transferred marginal routes to regionals under generous fee-for-departure arrangements that insulated the latter from many of the vagaries of the business. Bankrupt legacies squeezed scope clause concessions from pilot unions that made it possible for regionals to order and operate larger RJs. They enjoyed 10% profit margins as their major partners were losing hundreds of millions of dollars.
According to FAA's 2007 Aerospace Forecast, regional airline domestic capacity grew at an average annual rate of 15.8% between FY00 and FY06, from 38.3 billion ASMs to an estimated 92.5 billion for the year ended Sept. 30, 2006, while mainline capacity fell 5.9% (an average of 1% per year) to 657.7 billion ASMs from 688.3 billion over the same period.
Even this rapid pace, however, could not keep up with traffic demand, which climbed at an average rate of 20.1% per year, according to FAA, pushing average regional load factors from 59.5% in FY00 to an estimated 74.1% in FY06 (mainline domestic RPMs lifted just 0.8% per year during the period). Between those years, the regional share of US domestic capacity jumped from 5% to an estimated 12.5% and the regional fleet rose from 2,274 units to 2,743, propelled by a more than threefold increase in 40-seat-and-larger RJs from 496 units to 1,591.
But Chapter 11 cut both ways, and it was not too long before the mainline carriers began to use it as a club to beat down fee-for-departure payments and pit regional against regional for the opportunity to repaint their fleets and take on the major's two-letter code. Few have been immune to these bidding wars, with Atlantic Southeast (now a subsidiary of SkyWest), Comair, ExpressJet, Horizon, Pinnacle and Republic among those that have seen contract flying reshuffled to a competitor.
Faced with declining market opportunities, one RJ operator acquired a turboprop airline, another set up operations in Hawaii and struck a deal to fly in China, yet another is flying under its own brand and two mainline carriers are starting their own regional subsidiaries.
Longtime analyst Michael Boyd sees a grim future for the sector. "The [phrase] regional airline is a misnomer. They aren't regional and they aren't airlines," he tells ATW. "These are leasing companies, that's all, and it's a shrinking business." Furthermore, he believes many regionals still are overstocked with 50-seat RJs at a time when the fleet forecast shows there is no new demand for 50-seaters. "Anything with a CRJ or ERJ in front of it is going to have a hard time selling," he says.
Yet others see reasons for at least restrained optimism. FAA expects regional ASMs to continue to rise at a rate of 4.6% yearly through FY10, creating a demand for an additional 216 jets through the period. Network carriers will continue to focus resources on international flying while outsourcing even more domestic flying to regionals.
Limited Scope
Analysts from Raymond James & Assoc. believe there is a "pent-up demand" for aircraft in the 70/90-seat range. But if regionals are to fly them, scope clauses will have to be loosened further and that appears unlikely in light of the industry's current profitability. "Relaxation of scope is not going to happen in the near term," US Airways President Scott Kirby tells ATW. "It happens in a downturn. We are not asking for a relaxation of scope and we aren't utilizing the scope we have today." Mainline pilots will operate Embraer 190s for US Airways while RJs with up to 70 seats will be operated by regionals, he says. He also believes that the growth of LCCs has resulted in "fewer markets where regionals can generate profits."
The 335 aircraft operated by US Airways' nine regional partners (including wholly owned subsidiaries Piedmont and PSA Airlines) account for 17% of its ASMs, Kirby says, while the 360 mainline aircraft produce the rest. He is not convinced that outsourcing flying is the best option but says the current network is one that the company inherited over the past 20 years. "If we were starting from scratch, I'm not sure we would say we want to have multiple regional partners. You have more control over operations and we don't have to pay a profit margin to some third-party operator."
As the landscape shifts, some companies have shown an ability to adapt to the demands of their partners. Republic Airways Holdings CEO Bryan Bedford acknowledges that the climate has been "intensely competitive" as regionals have fought to retain their franchise agreements. RAH, with subsidiaries Chautauqua Airlines, Shuttle America and Republic Airlines, is one of the more successful of the groupin 2006 its net profit soared 31.1% to $79.5 million. It was selected by Continental Airlines to operate 24 CRJ200s for Continental Express by year end and won a contract to fly 17 E-170s for Frontier Airlines. In March it took delivery of the first of 30 E-175s that will be operated as US Airways Express. It expects to hire up to 1,000 pilots in the coming year.
But even Republic is not above the waves of change. In March, its agreement with Delta Air Lines was amended to remove 15 37-seat ERJs by September 2008 and reduce the reimbursement rate by 3% for the 24 ERJ-145s and 16 E-170s it will continue to operate for DL.
"This is a cyclical industry. When times are good, regionals grow slower; when times are bad we grow really fast. But generally, we grow good times and bad," says Bedford.
ExpressJet, which flies for Continental, has been quite nimble since CO said it would cut 69 ERJ-145s from its service agreement. ExpressJet opted to keep the aircraft and seek other opportunities. Finding a use for 50-seaters, which many view as the dodo birds of the industry, was a daunting challenge. It has placed 10 in a newly won Delta Connection service agreement and formed a corporate shuttle to market a further 15. The remaining 44 are being used to launch its own independent airline.
With memories of the Independence Air fiasco still fresh, such a move might appear foolhardy. ExpressJet CEO Jim Ream says, however, that the operations are not comparable. Whereas Independence tried to run a low-fare, hub-and-spoke carrier against United Airlines at Washington Dulles with a mix of 50-seat RJs and A320s, Ream says the 44 ERJs will link smaller communities with point-to-point service that bypasses hubs. "I think this is the right thing for us to do . . . I think it will be successful. It's a question of brand awareness and building a market.
Winning and Losing
Pinnacle Airlines, which operates a fleet of 127 50-seat CRJs and reported net income of $77.8 million in 2006 compared to $25.6 million in 2005, also had a period of adjustment when it was forced to renegotiate its deal with bankrupt Northwest Airlines. Although it has had to accept a lower level of remuneration as part of the new service agreement finalized in December, in return NWA will allow it to fly aircraft on behalf of other mainline carriers as long as they stay away from Northwest's hubs. "We have complete freedom," CEO Phil Trenary tells ATW, while acknowledging his airline is "a little late to the party."
In January, Pinnacle acquired Colgan Airways, an East Coast turboprop operator that flies for Continental, US Airways and United. Shortly afterward, Pinnacle announced a deal valued at $1.2 billion to acquire 15 Q400s to be operated by Colgan. "We believe in the Q400," says Trenary. "It's a great airplane and it's underestimated."
Consistently profitable SkyWest Airlines, which posted a 29.9% increase in net income to $145.8 million for 2006, operates on behalf of Delta and United. In December it signed a deal with Midwest Airlines to fly up to 25 50-seat CRJs for the Milwaukee-based carrier. "We still see opportunity, says SkyWest Executive VP and CFO Brad Rich. "We were looking forward to a period where we could sit back and catch our breath, then we moved into one of the busiest high-growth periods in our history."
In November, Delta selected SkyWest to operate 12 CRJ700s previously flown by Comair at the Cincinnati hub, bringing to 228 RJs and 24 turboprops the number of aircraft SkyWast operates for DL. However, the major also dumped SkyWest's Atlantic Southeast Airlines subsidiary at Los Angeles International, transferring the business to ExpressJet. Rich indicates this was a mutual decision because ASA lacked the hot/high-performance aircraft to serve the markets best.
"The total pieif it is defined as future growth opportunitiesmay be shrinking," he observes. "There are a limited amount of players that will be carving up that pie. It will be those with the best balance sheet, carriers who can finance airplanes, who have strong liquidity, that are creating the highest quality." Over the past year, SkyWest declined to respond to about four RFPs because it didn't want to "compromise" its work for current partners, he says.
Mesa Air Group has sought aggressivelyand foundnew business over the past year although earnings have slipped. It was $34 million in the black for the year ended last Sept. 30 but with a 40.3% earnings decline from the previous financial year. Last June it launched an independent airline in Hawaii named go! with four CRJ200s, sparking a fare war as well as legal battles with longtime island carriers Hawaiian Airlines and Aloha Air (ATW, 12/06, p. 24). It does not provide separate results for its operating units so it is not known how go! is performing.
In December Mesa announced a partnership with Shenzhen Airlines to begin regional operations in mainland China. CEO Jonathan Ornstein says that service could begin as early as next fall although he has had difficulty finding 50-seaters for the new business; "We're trying to find airplanes for China but it's not easy." In March, Mesa's service agreement with Delta was amended to include flying 14 CRJ900s.
If the regionals do not face enough challenges, some mainline carriers are now creating their own feeders. Northwest, for example, is moving forward with the launch of Compass Airlines, which will operate up to 10 E-175s as an Airlink partner by year end with service expected to begin in the third quarter. NWA also is acquiring Mesaba Airlines, which followed the major into bankruptcy after NWA walked away from millions of dollars in payments when it filed Chapter 11.
MAIR Holdings, parent of Mesaba, has another subsidiary, Big Sky Airlines, a Beech 1900 operator based in Billings, Mont. Paul Foley, president and CEO of MAIR and chairman of the Regional Airline Assn., did not return calls seeking comment regarding his plans for Big Sky.
Frontier Airlines also plans to start its own regional feeder, Lynx Airlines, with a fleet of 10 Q400s ordered last September.
Trenary sees further change looming. Mainline carriers are pushing more financial responsibility onto regionals, which he describes as a move "back to the future. We are headed back to where there will be market risks on the regionals." Majors will aim for more pro-rate agreements rather than capacity or fee-for-departure deals, he believes.
Bedford is not so sure. "Anytime a market makes sense for us to operate on a pro-rate basis, it makes more sense for [majors] to retain it on a capacity basis," he tells this magazine. "Anything they would be happy to pro-rate doesn't work for us. I think we could see it in turboprop markets that don't make sense for RJs to fly."
Dance Fever
The bidding wars are far from over, airline CEOs and industry analysts agree. "All it takes is for one desperate company to want the franchise and that sets the bar very low until someone says we can't go that low," says Abbey. "When the RFPs go out, they've gotten to know what their competitors are going to do. When they hear the tune, they start to dance."
While some regionals are unwilling to enter agreements that won't give a sufficient return on capital investment, others seem prepared to do so. "Optimistically, I'd like to believe it would be rational," says Bedford. "However, there are certain carriers that have motivations that go beyond a pure return on economic investment. They are trying to get a foot in the door. They may be inclined to do something I would consider economically irrational." Still, he says, "The industry has to obtain a fair return on investment capital or we don't invest the capital."
There is a bottom line in the bidding wars, Trenary concludes. "The market is apparently rational. They said we would see regionals bidding at four and five point margins to keep their business. We are seeing some pressure on margins but nothing below capital cost bids."
Abbey believes more changes are in store. "Nobody can take anything for granted, including a franchise, healthy growth or considerable profit margins. All of that is going. It is strictly a business-to-business relationship."
RAA IS MEMPHIS BOUND
The Regional Airline Assn. is expecting more than 1,000 attendees at its May 21-24 annual meeting in Memphis where discussions will center on overall operations as well as legislation that directly affects regional carriers, according to newly installed President Roger Cohen.
FAA's reauthorization proposal, which embraces a user fee system to pay for ATC, is a major concern for regionals, according to Cohen, who says the proposal "would make it more difficult, more expensive, less convenient and wouldn't solve the delay problem or customer service issues which aren't always controlled by the regional carrier." RAA members are hopeful the agency will understand the role they play as sole providers of air service in more than 400 small US communities and the potential harm that could come from the imposition of user fees. "We don't want to see anything that would make it harder for people to get where they are going or our employees to do their job," Cohen says.
Keynote speakers include FAA Administrator Marion Blakey and FedEx President and CEO Fred Smith. A panel discussion will feature two former Congressional aides who worked on aviation-related issues in the last Congress. There also will be an opportunity for suppliers to meet directly with buyers from regionals.
Kevin
US regional airlines must fight each other to win new business from their major "partners."
By Sandra Arnoult
Air Transport World, May 2007, p.26
REGIONAL AIRLINES IN the US have been forced to find new resiliency as they respond to mainline carriers' increasing demands for lower costs. No longer partners in the traditional sense of the word, they have become interchangeable suppliers of commodity lift to the legacy airlines under the fee-for-departure arrangements that reshaped the industry in the 1990s.
"These guys are vendors competing against other vendors," says Doug Abbey, an analyst with The Velocity Group, while one regional airline CEO describes the current climate as "hypercompetitive."
The new reality is quite different from the one experienced in the first five years of the 21st century when business was booming and robust orders for regional jets or fleet restructuring were de rigueur. Faced with the collapse in yield after the dot.com meltdown and 9/11, mainline carriers downsized and transferred marginal routes to regionals under generous fee-for-departure arrangements that insulated the latter from many of the vagaries of the business. Bankrupt legacies squeezed scope clause concessions from pilot unions that made it possible for regionals to order and operate larger RJs. They enjoyed 10% profit margins as their major partners were losing hundreds of millions of dollars.
According to FAA's 2007 Aerospace Forecast, regional airline domestic capacity grew at an average annual rate of 15.8% between FY00 and FY06, from 38.3 billion ASMs to an estimated 92.5 billion for the year ended Sept. 30, 2006, while mainline capacity fell 5.9% (an average of 1% per year) to 657.7 billion ASMs from 688.3 billion over the same period.
Even this rapid pace, however, could not keep up with traffic demand, which climbed at an average rate of 20.1% per year, according to FAA, pushing average regional load factors from 59.5% in FY00 to an estimated 74.1% in FY06 (mainline domestic RPMs lifted just 0.8% per year during the period). Between those years, the regional share of US domestic capacity jumped from 5% to an estimated 12.5% and the regional fleet rose from 2,274 units to 2,743, propelled by a more than threefold increase in 40-seat-and-larger RJs from 496 units to 1,591.
But Chapter 11 cut both ways, and it was not too long before the mainline carriers began to use it as a club to beat down fee-for-departure payments and pit regional against regional for the opportunity to repaint their fleets and take on the major's two-letter code. Few have been immune to these bidding wars, with Atlantic Southeast (now a subsidiary of SkyWest), Comair, ExpressJet, Horizon, Pinnacle and Republic among those that have seen contract flying reshuffled to a competitor.
Faced with declining market opportunities, one RJ operator acquired a turboprop airline, another set up operations in Hawaii and struck a deal to fly in China, yet another is flying under its own brand and two mainline carriers are starting their own regional subsidiaries.
Longtime analyst Michael Boyd sees a grim future for the sector. "The [phrase] regional airline is a misnomer. They aren't regional and they aren't airlines," he tells ATW. "These are leasing companies, that's all, and it's a shrinking business." Furthermore, he believes many regionals still are overstocked with 50-seat RJs at a time when the fleet forecast shows there is no new demand for 50-seaters. "Anything with a CRJ or ERJ in front of it is going to have a hard time selling," he says.
Yet others see reasons for at least restrained optimism. FAA expects regional ASMs to continue to rise at a rate of 4.6% yearly through FY10, creating a demand for an additional 216 jets through the period. Network carriers will continue to focus resources on international flying while outsourcing even more domestic flying to regionals.
Limited Scope
Analysts from Raymond James & Assoc. believe there is a "pent-up demand" for aircraft in the 70/90-seat range. But if regionals are to fly them, scope clauses will have to be loosened further and that appears unlikely in light of the industry's current profitability. "Relaxation of scope is not going to happen in the near term," US Airways President Scott Kirby tells ATW. "It happens in a downturn. We are not asking for a relaxation of scope and we aren't utilizing the scope we have today." Mainline pilots will operate Embraer 190s for US Airways while RJs with up to 70 seats will be operated by regionals, he says. He also believes that the growth of LCCs has resulted in "fewer markets where regionals can generate profits."
The 335 aircraft operated by US Airways' nine regional partners (including wholly owned subsidiaries Piedmont and PSA Airlines) account for 17% of its ASMs, Kirby says, while the 360 mainline aircraft produce the rest. He is not convinced that outsourcing flying is the best option but says the current network is one that the company inherited over the past 20 years. "If we were starting from scratch, I'm not sure we would say we want to have multiple regional partners. You have more control over operations and we don't have to pay a profit margin to some third-party operator."
As the landscape shifts, some companies have shown an ability to adapt to the demands of their partners. Republic Airways Holdings CEO Bryan Bedford acknowledges that the climate has been "intensely competitive" as regionals have fought to retain their franchise agreements. RAH, with subsidiaries Chautauqua Airlines, Shuttle America and Republic Airlines, is one of the more successful of the groupin 2006 its net profit soared 31.1% to $79.5 million. It was selected by Continental Airlines to operate 24 CRJ200s for Continental Express by year end and won a contract to fly 17 E-170s for Frontier Airlines. In March it took delivery of the first of 30 E-175s that will be operated as US Airways Express. It expects to hire up to 1,000 pilots in the coming year.
But even Republic is not above the waves of change. In March, its agreement with Delta Air Lines was amended to remove 15 37-seat ERJs by September 2008 and reduce the reimbursement rate by 3% for the 24 ERJ-145s and 16 E-170s it will continue to operate for DL.
"This is a cyclical industry. When times are good, regionals grow slower; when times are bad we grow really fast. But generally, we grow good times and bad," says Bedford.
ExpressJet, which flies for Continental, has been quite nimble since CO said it would cut 69 ERJ-145s from its service agreement. ExpressJet opted to keep the aircraft and seek other opportunities. Finding a use for 50-seaters, which many view as the dodo birds of the industry, was a daunting challenge. It has placed 10 in a newly won Delta Connection service agreement and formed a corporate shuttle to market a further 15. The remaining 44 are being used to launch its own independent airline.
With memories of the Independence Air fiasco still fresh, such a move might appear foolhardy. ExpressJet CEO Jim Ream says, however, that the operations are not comparable. Whereas Independence tried to run a low-fare, hub-and-spoke carrier against United Airlines at Washington Dulles with a mix of 50-seat RJs and A320s, Ream says the 44 ERJs will link smaller communities with point-to-point service that bypasses hubs. "I think this is the right thing for us to do . . . I think it will be successful. It's a question of brand awareness and building a market.
Winning and Losing
Pinnacle Airlines, which operates a fleet of 127 50-seat CRJs and reported net income of $77.8 million in 2006 compared to $25.6 million in 2005, also had a period of adjustment when it was forced to renegotiate its deal with bankrupt Northwest Airlines. Although it has had to accept a lower level of remuneration as part of the new service agreement finalized in December, in return NWA will allow it to fly aircraft on behalf of other mainline carriers as long as they stay away from Northwest's hubs. "We have complete freedom," CEO Phil Trenary tells ATW, while acknowledging his airline is "a little late to the party."
In January, Pinnacle acquired Colgan Airways, an East Coast turboprop operator that flies for Continental, US Airways and United. Shortly afterward, Pinnacle announced a deal valued at $1.2 billion to acquire 15 Q400s to be operated by Colgan. "We believe in the Q400," says Trenary. "It's a great airplane and it's underestimated."
Consistently profitable SkyWest Airlines, which posted a 29.9% increase in net income to $145.8 million for 2006, operates on behalf of Delta and United. In December it signed a deal with Midwest Airlines to fly up to 25 50-seat CRJs for the Milwaukee-based carrier. "We still see opportunity, says SkyWest Executive VP and CFO Brad Rich. "We were looking forward to a period where we could sit back and catch our breath, then we moved into one of the busiest high-growth periods in our history."
In November, Delta selected SkyWest to operate 12 CRJ700s previously flown by Comair at the Cincinnati hub, bringing to 228 RJs and 24 turboprops the number of aircraft SkyWast operates for DL. However, the major also dumped SkyWest's Atlantic Southeast Airlines subsidiary at Los Angeles International, transferring the business to ExpressJet. Rich indicates this was a mutual decision because ASA lacked the hot/high-performance aircraft to serve the markets best.
"The total pieif it is defined as future growth opportunitiesmay be shrinking," he observes. "There are a limited amount of players that will be carving up that pie. It will be those with the best balance sheet, carriers who can finance airplanes, who have strong liquidity, that are creating the highest quality." Over the past year, SkyWest declined to respond to about four RFPs because it didn't want to "compromise" its work for current partners, he says.
Mesa Air Group has sought aggressivelyand foundnew business over the past year although earnings have slipped. It was $34 million in the black for the year ended last Sept. 30 but with a 40.3% earnings decline from the previous financial year. Last June it launched an independent airline in Hawaii named go! with four CRJ200s, sparking a fare war as well as legal battles with longtime island carriers Hawaiian Airlines and Aloha Air (ATW, 12/06, p. 24). It does not provide separate results for its operating units so it is not known how go! is performing.
In December Mesa announced a partnership with Shenzhen Airlines to begin regional operations in mainland China. CEO Jonathan Ornstein says that service could begin as early as next fall although he has had difficulty finding 50-seaters for the new business; "We're trying to find airplanes for China but it's not easy." In March, Mesa's service agreement with Delta was amended to include flying 14 CRJ900s.
If the regionals do not face enough challenges, some mainline carriers are now creating their own feeders. Northwest, for example, is moving forward with the launch of Compass Airlines, which will operate up to 10 E-175s as an Airlink partner by year end with service expected to begin in the third quarter. NWA also is acquiring Mesaba Airlines, which followed the major into bankruptcy after NWA walked away from millions of dollars in payments when it filed Chapter 11.
MAIR Holdings, parent of Mesaba, has another subsidiary, Big Sky Airlines, a Beech 1900 operator based in Billings, Mont. Paul Foley, president and CEO of MAIR and chairman of the Regional Airline Assn., did not return calls seeking comment regarding his plans for Big Sky.
Frontier Airlines also plans to start its own regional feeder, Lynx Airlines, with a fleet of 10 Q400s ordered last September.
Trenary sees further change looming. Mainline carriers are pushing more financial responsibility onto regionals, which he describes as a move "back to the future. We are headed back to where there will be market risks on the regionals." Majors will aim for more pro-rate agreements rather than capacity or fee-for-departure deals, he believes.
Bedford is not so sure. "Anytime a market makes sense for us to operate on a pro-rate basis, it makes more sense for [majors] to retain it on a capacity basis," he tells this magazine. "Anything they would be happy to pro-rate doesn't work for us. I think we could see it in turboprop markets that don't make sense for RJs to fly."
Dance Fever
The bidding wars are far from over, airline CEOs and industry analysts agree. "All it takes is for one desperate company to want the franchise and that sets the bar very low until someone says we can't go that low," says Abbey. "When the RFPs go out, they've gotten to know what their competitors are going to do. When they hear the tune, they start to dance."
While some regionals are unwilling to enter agreements that won't give a sufficient return on capital investment, others seem prepared to do so. "Optimistically, I'd like to believe it would be rational," says Bedford. "However, there are certain carriers that have motivations that go beyond a pure return on economic investment. They are trying to get a foot in the door. They may be inclined to do something I would consider economically irrational." Still, he says, "The industry has to obtain a fair return on investment capital or we don't invest the capital."
There is a bottom line in the bidding wars, Trenary concludes. "The market is apparently rational. They said we would see regionals bidding at four and five point margins to keep their business. We are seeing some pressure on margins but nothing below capital cost bids."
Abbey believes more changes are in store. "Nobody can take anything for granted, including a franchise, healthy growth or considerable profit margins. All of that is going. It is strictly a business-to-business relationship."
RAA IS MEMPHIS BOUND
The Regional Airline Assn. is expecting more than 1,000 attendees at its May 21-24 annual meeting in Memphis where discussions will center on overall operations as well as legislation that directly affects regional carriers, according to newly installed President Roger Cohen.
FAA's reauthorization proposal, which embraces a user fee system to pay for ATC, is a major concern for regionals, according to Cohen, who says the proposal "would make it more difficult, more expensive, less convenient and wouldn't solve the delay problem or customer service issues which aren't always controlled by the regional carrier." RAA members are hopeful the agency will understand the role they play as sole providers of air service in more than 400 small US communities and the potential harm that could come from the imposition of user fees. "We don't want to see anything that would make it harder for people to get where they are going or our employees to do their job," Cohen says.
Keynote speakers include FAA Administrator Marion Blakey and FedEx President and CEO Fred Smith. A panel discussion will feature two former Congressional aides who worked on aviation-related issues in the last Congress. There also will be an opportunity for suppliers to meet directly with buyers from regionals.
Kevin
