The New American Eagle: A Breakdown of the Future AA Feed

[JOEFRIDAY2]

You can read this a number of ways.

The fact remains that American (like United and Delta) currently MUST have the regionals because they feed 50% of the passengers into mainline.

My good sense tells me that the CRJ-200 aircraft are going to first out of the fleet. The cost per revenue passenger mile on that aircraft is the highest in the industry. So you can expect that the new aircraft on order will replace those CRJ-200's.

The CRJ's that Air Wisconsin has are some of the first CRJ's made. They were originally United Express aircraft. They are pretty old aircraft. At some point, American will need to come to terms with Air Wisconsin one way or another. Until that time, Air Wisconsin is not going to commit for new aircraft. This will be a strong indicator of where all of this is going and this is something to keep an eye on.

I also expect, at some point, that mainline will start to pick up some of the routes that the regionals currently fly. The timing on this is going to depend on how difficult the regionals have hiring and keeping pilots. You can already see Delta planning for this with the addition of the 717's. American and United will also have to make a similar move.

I don't see the regionals growing at all. I believe the regionals will continue to shrink.as mainline keeps hiring their pilots.

Joe

 

[Murdoughnut]

Mr. Murdoughnut, do you know what the current cost comparison is with Envoy and these other Regionals that are flying for American? As long as Envoy's cost is competitive, I think your prediction will be wrong. If they arent, then I think you are right and that deal to keep 170 airframes would be pretty sweet.

I don't have numbers - but I would have to think that Envoy's personnel costs are greater than the regional average due to having more senior crew members. I talked to an Envoy CPT the other day who talked about how he wasn't the least bit interested in taking flow through because it would cut his salary down to a third of what he currently earns (which I figure to be around $100k). I imagine the airline has a lot of retirement oriented crew members, perhaps more so than other carriers. Maybe I'm wrong on this, though.

 

[NewYorkophile]

I don't have numbers - but I would have to think that Envoy's personnel costs are greater than the regional average due to having more senior crew members. I talked to an Envoy CPT the other day who talked about how he wasn't the least bit interested in taking flow through because it would cut his salary down to a third of what he currently earns (which I figure to be around $100k). I imagine the airline has a lot of retirement oriented crew members, perhaps more so than other carriers. Maybe I'm wrong on this, though.

AE (what are we calling this now, American Envoy?) doesn't have a high-year cap on Captain's pay? 100k sounds like a helluva paycheck for flying RJ's.

 

[Jafari RastaMan]

I don't have numbers - but I would have to think that Envoy's personnel costs are greater than the regional average due to having more senior crew members. I talked to an Envoy CPT the other day who talked about how he wasn't the least bit interested in taking flow through because it would cut his salary down to a third of what he currently earns (which I figure to be around $100k). I imagine the airline has a lot of retirement oriented crew members, perhaps more so than other carriers. Maybe I'm wrong on this, though.

What would really sting is if Envoy does wind down over the next 3 years, and the current pilots end up flying for another Regional that says "American Eagle" on the side, but they are started over on 1st year pay.

 

[Murdoughnut]

AE (what are we calling this now, American Envoy?) doesn't have a high-year cap on Captain's pay? 100k sounds like a helluva paycheck for flying RJ's.

I'm sure they do - but there are plenty of Eagle folks on here who can speak more directly to senior captain salary ranges.

 

[Firebird2XC]

I'm sure they do - but there are plenty of Eagle folks on here who can speak more directly to senior captain salary ranges.

You're correct on several counts- and previously our costs due to longevity was one of our worst points.

That however is self-correcting with flow-through. If people flow as expected this year, we will have a vast majority of CAs at 10 years or less seniority.

 

[falconvalley]

So I've been out of the airline game for about a year now. I've never realized how diverse AAL is when it comes to regional flying. I was shocked to see ExpressJet flying CRJ's for AAL (Hell, surprised Expressjet flies CRJ's period). How fast things have changed. It's somewhat funny to hear all the names of all these 'other' airlines flying for AAL when in fact it's like 3 airlines total since they all own eachother (ASA, Xjet, Skywest, etc) and Republic (Chatauqua).

You didn't realize it because it wasn't like that!