Regional airlines new TAs rumor mill

BigZ

BigZ

Well-Known Member
#1
#1
Disclaimer: I understand that the old timers went through the years of much, much worse than what's out there now. Yet methinks there is plenty of room for improvement. Corporate gigs are upping the game to retain the talent, no reason why a regional CA should be getting 2/3 of the starting light jet captain's pay.

Endeavor and Republic upped the game a bit, I'm hearing Air Wisconsin and Piedmont are getting somewhere in their negotiations.
Anyone hearing anything good?

Disclaimer #2: no Porsche Panameras will be bought based on the rumors of upcoming good life

Disclaimer #3: I do understand that until stuff is ratified and implemented there's really no solid point talking about it, but imma reserve puke with too much time on my hands, so there's that.
 
chrisreedrules

chrisreedrules

Master Blaster
#3
#3
All 3 AA WOs have been in talks/negotiations with their respective managements. That is not to say that they are necessarily talking about new pay rates specifically (although I’m sure it is on the table). The thing to remember with the AA WOs is that any talks with their regional management is basically like you asking your parent for something and then they go and ask the other parent to make sure you can have it. Everything goes through the AAG overlords and I have heard rumors that things were actually discussed and agreed upon but that AA has basically either met the requests with silence or a flat out, “no”. The market will push increased pay at the WOs. Especially as hiring DECs becomes an increasing necessity.
 
BigZ

BigZ

Well-Known Member
#5
#5
chrisreedrules said:
All 3 AA WOs have been in talks/negotiations with their respective managements. That is not to say that they are necessarily talking about new pay rates specifically (although I’m sure it is on the table). The thing to remember with the AA WOs is that any talks with their regional management is basically like you asking your parent for something and then they go and ask the other parent to make sure you can have it. Everything goes through the AAG overlords and I have heard rumors that things were actually discussed and agreed upon but that AA has basically either met the requests with silence or a flat out, “no”. The market will push increased pay at the WOs. Especially as hiring DECs becomes an increasing necessity.
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Presumably at ENY the AAG said nope to the big packet of stuff back in January. Union and the company then drafted a "core" small packet they thought would get an approval from the mothership with the idea of working in the other stuff at a later date. Crickets since early March. But here it's all about the flow more so then anything else. Reserve rules LOA (which had a few things in there I could benefit from) has been dead since November when Endeavor got their rates and the pilot group returned it to the union basically saying "See the Endeavor thing? Go do that"
 
chrisreedrules

chrisreedrules

Master Blaster
#6
#6
BigZ said:
Presumably at ENY the AAG said nope to the big packet of stuff back in January. Union and the company then drafted a "core" small packet they thought would get an approval from the mothership with the idea of working in the other stuff at a later date. Crickets since early March. But here it's all about the flow more so then anything else. Reserve rules LOA (which had a few things in there I could benefit from) has been dead since November when Endeavor got their rates and the pilot group returned it to the union basically saying "See the Endeavor thing? Go do that"
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Yea I mean, I won’t go into any of the few details I do know about PSA’s ongoing negotiations but right now some stuff that was being discussed and pretty much agreed to is dead in the water to a certain extent.

It is curious what is happening at the AA WOs. Envoy desperately needs DECs but it is hard to convince people to go be based in LGA for indefinite reserve and only an extra $45K. Piedmont is opening a new hub domicile in CLT this summer and is now hiring DECs that they’ll need to grow their operation. And PSA has basically reached a point on the seniority-list that those who could be senior-manned into an upgrade don’t have the required experience to do so.

The common theme that will solve the issues at the WOs is increased CA pay and a major contract overhaul.
 
BobDDuck

BobDDuck

Island Bus Driver
#8
#8
Stuff may have changed in the past 5 years, but don'tfor one second think that American management is out of the loop on things. While yes it is true the alpa units at the WOs have to negotiate with both local and Dallas management, it is not a team effort between the pilot group and the WO company managers.
 
W

word302

Well-Known Member
#10
#10
OO is in talks. We'll probably vote yes to 2%.

On a serious note we are actually at a net loss for pilots over the last 2 months for the first time in years. I wouldn't be surprised if management actually throws us a decent bone, though I'm not holding my breath.
 
Flying Saluki

Flying Saluki

Well-Known Member
#12
#12
BigZ said:
Disclaimer: I understand that the old timers went through the years of much, much worse than what's out there now. Yet methinks there is plenty of room for improvement. Corporate gigs are upping the game to retain the talent, no reason why a regional CA should be getting 2/3 of the starting light jet captain's pay.

Endeavor and Republic upped the game a bit, I'm hearing Air Wisconsin and Piedmont are getting somewhere in their negotiations.
Anyone hearing anything good?

Disclaimer #2: no Porsche Panameras will be bought based on the rumors of upcoming good life

Disclaimer #3: I do understand that until stuff is ratified and implemented there's really no solid point talking about it, but imma reserve puke with too much time on my hands, so there's that.
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Sure there is: the two are completely different business models. The regional is a for-profit revenue stream for itself and its mainline partner. The corporate is a support service that is an expense the company is willing to bear because it supports the mission

The point here is not to belittle the regional guy (or the corporate guy, for that matter) but to illustrate that there’s more too it than just the size/type of airplane.
 
BigZ

BigZ

Well-Known Member
#13
#13
Flying Saluki said:
Sure there is: the two are completely different business models. The regional is a for-profit revenue stream for itself and its mainline partner. The corporate is a support service that is an expense the company is willing to bear because it supports the mission

The point here is not to belittle the regional guy (or the corporate guy, for that matter) but to illustrate that there’s more too it than just the size/type of airplane.
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Fair enough, let me rephrase that to include part 135 charter outfits that run half a dozen light jets. Those are for profit operations

It could be argued that they have to pay more to retain the pilots since the possibilities for the career advancement are more limited, true. But I'd still be very surprised if entry level regional CAs don't make at least 120k in the next couple of years.
 
T

This is My Screen Name

Well-Known Member
#14
#14
BigZ said:
Endeavor and Republic upped the game a bit.
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Not to knock 9E around any...

CRJ900
12 120
11 119
10 118
9 116
8 115
7 112
6 109
5 107
4 104
3 102
2 88
1 88

This is Delta's FO pay scale for the the CRJ9 - significantly more then 9E gets. Yea, yea I know more seats at mainline than at Regional. Point being however at one point in time it was determined that they could operate this aircraft and pay these wages and still make a profit.

Regionals and B Scales have been racing to the bottom for a long time. Yea, some will say that outsourcing and the Regional model is what saved the industry. I think that there is a heck of lot of meat left on that bone (even with the seating difference) and they better start carving some off...
 
Flying Saluki

Flying Saluki

Well-Known Member
#15
#15
This is My Screen Name said:
Not to knock 9E around any...

CRJ900
12 120
11 119
10 118
9 116
8 115
7 112
6 109
5 107
4 104
3 102
2 88
1 88

This is Delta's FO pay scale for the the CRJ9 - significantly more then 9E gets. Yea, yea I know more seats at mainline than at Regional. Point being however at one point in time it was determined that they could operate this aircraft and pay these wages and still make a profit.

Regionals and B Scales have been racing to the bottom for a long time. Yea, some will say that outsourcing and the Regional model is what saved the industry. I think that there is a heck of lot of meat left on that bone (even with the seating difference) and they better start carving some off...
Click to expand...
It was determined that they could operate this aircraft and pay these wages within the context of also operating much larger airplanes at the same time and still make a profit.

People talk about “the race to the bottom” as though it’s something unique to the airlines. Every business in every industry does this. For that matter, every individual does as well.
 
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T

This is My Screen Name

Well-Known Member
#16
#16
Flying Saluki said:
It was determined that they could operate this aircraft and pay these wages within the context of also operating much larger airplanes at the same time and still make a profit.

People talk about “the race to the bottom” as though it’s something unique to the airlines. Every business in every industry does this. For that matter, every individual does as well.
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Your point ?
They still operate much larger airplanes AND outsource the smaller planes for significantly less than they used to pay at the same time....

Every individual does not do this. I haven't and won't.

If they start paying less than I think I'm worth I'll go do something else. I have other job skills to fall back on.
 
Rodger Wilco

Rodger Wilco

Well-Known Member
#18
#18
As long as they can continue to hire I doubt that we will see much of an improvement in pay or QOL. I keep hearing this line that the company wants to retain senior guys, but I don't think they want to pay them three times the hourly rate of a new hire FO.

I'm not sure where all the new hires are coming from. I do know that there is a decline in both quality and quantity of applicant.
Last year there was a rumor that we hired a guy who got all his flight time in a hot air ballon. Regionals have mined out most of the talent from 141 and 91 flight schools. Now they are focused on hiring pilots from other regionals. I wonder how long until that stream of applicants runs out, and then what? Oh wait I know what, cheap pilots from another country, who are happy to work for 20k a year. Are some regionals are already doing this with some sort of visa program?
 
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