MILPILOT17

Will not happen! If it did then Dallas Love Field will need a much bigger fire department!!!

F9er

From my personal perspective as a junior F9 guy, a staple is cool with me

I keep hearing guys talk about RAH and doubling the "Frontier" brand, which does sound great, we all love Frontier. Its time for everyone to wake up and realize that its over, look to the future and ask yourself where would I rather be in 10 years?

Personally, SWA, its a no brainer.

I think any "growth" at F9 (if we were purchased by RAH) would either be 76 seat RJ's (our scope wont allow anything bigger) and IF, I mean a big IF we do purchase more Airbus's the Repbulic guys will have there hands all over them with the "we saved your butt, so its ours to fly" mentality.

So who do I want to be flying with in 10 years? A respected airline who's entire business model is growth, (i.e. we wont be at the bottom forever) or slinging gear on our airbus for a 5 year Republic captain who was able to jump ship after the fence was down.....tough choice for me

TillerEnvy

[quote=fiel12;658113] I would guess this will be a binding bid on the 11th contingent on a SWAPA/ FAPA agreement. quote]

ALL bids are binding on the 10th! The BK judge has already come out and stated that and ruled on that. Before the 10th, do what you want, but all bids on/after the 10th are binding, with our without a labor agreement.

solost

It is my opinion that what RAH has to offer frontier is a much greater deal in the long term. Frontier pilots will be able to keep their positions and most likely pay, with fences and protection from furlough because I believe they will be offered a more than fair integration at RAH.

From what has been discussed, I think any captains at F9 will end up at the top of the RAH seniority list due to the fact that no pilot at RAH could have reasonably had the same career expectations. If not the top top of the list at least a 1 to 1 or, 1 to 2 integration. As for all of the FO's, they could be in the same category as career expectations as the rest of the RAH captains. Perhaps about the same pay, etc... So after the the end of the F9 captains, the FO's could be integrated at 1 to 5 with the RAH captain list. That would put all of them at the top 50% of the RAH list. With that in mind they would also have first chance to bid any DEN vacancies on any aircraft. As for LYNX I don't know what would be fair. Perhaps their captains at the end of the RAH captain list, and FO the end of the RAH FO list with fences or some other protection.

Frontier as a brand still has a strong future with RAH. They are a strong pilot group and could really help make the industry better. Thinka about the possibilities here to develop a pilot list that starts at the regional FO level, and progresses to at least the narrow body. RAH is under contract negotitiations and will win a strong contract. It may take time, but it will happen, and they have a lot of bargaining chips to make it so, especially if the company is doing at risk flying and can't afford the possibility of a strike.

This potentially the moment that could change the airlines for the better not the worse. If F9 ends up with SWA they are just a footnote in history, end of story.

Also as for Southwest winning this bid, I do believe they are fighting an uphill battle. RAH is the largest secured creditor to the tune of nearly 50%, with that much of a vote in the matter. Don't forget that Airbus is also the second highest secured creditor. No way they want to take these planes back in this world wide down economy, they will want to keep them flying. I am not sure if the entire employee group will have a vote, but if they do they should really considere that there will be not jobs at SWA for the majority of them, we are not just talking about pilots here.

Either way I hope the best for F9 I have some good friends there and I hope they are happy with the outcome either way and their interest are also served.

Vegaspilot

I think you're dreaming if you think RAH will leave F9 status quo. As much as I don't want to see the Frontier brand disappear, I would rather they be a respected footnote in history, then to watch what I suspect will happen to them with RAH at the helm. I'd like to be wrong on this, but I firmly believe thats not RAH's MO. SWA is the better option

flyguy23

RAH's MO? Midwest is the first airline RAH has acquired. At the time of the acquisition, the 717s were already being taken back by Boeing. They had to be replaced by something and the 190 is a near perfect aircraft for that. F9 is a TOTALLY different situation. I dont claim to know what will happen in the long run, but you don't know either. Midwest is a very poor example as the two situations are nothing alike. Bedford has already said the 190 isn't a big enough aircraft for some of midwests routes. One could make the assumption he wants to spread the airbus flying to MKE as well as Denver. He won't grow his own airline with just 190s. Airbus will more than likely be in the picture one way or another. F9 just speeds that process up....a lot.

Bwipilot

I think its funny that everyone at RAH is selling this like the Holy Grail. Makes you wonder what their true motive is. I'm guessing that they'd like to fly the Airbuses and replace the F9 pilots.

Are you smoking dope? When was the last time a Regional Airline won a great contract for their management? Bueller? Bueller? Oh and you can't count Comair since we all no what happened to them afterward--loss of flying and jobs. Oh wait--could that happen to Republic? What happens when they become too expensive and get replaced by another scam of an airline? I'm guessing that F9 pilots will end up on the street after flying for less money and more misery.

Being at a regional sucks. I think the RAH guys are selling this so hard because misery loves company--especially when they think they can profit from someone elses misery.

flyguy23

You fail to recognize RAH will no longer be just a regional carrier. Those 190s are being flown by "mainline". The wages may suck, but they are not fee per departure. We are not competing against anyone else for our own flying, so it does give the pilots a LOT more leverage in negotiations. What happened to comair means nothing here. There will be raises on the 50 and 70 seat flying im sure, but the real target is the "mainline" flying right?


After reading your post again, I realize you're just on here to flame with no real discussion. Disregard.

Bwipilot

So what percentage of the F9 guys would you expect to be junior to you on the combined seniority list flyguy23?

deltabound

Interesting first post. Calm, non-confrontational, and logically reasoned.

I doubt many F9 pilots agree though. The chance at becoming even the most junior pilot at SWA is a far better deal than becoming part of a RAH super-low cost domestic start up. After only 2-3 years at SWA as an FO they'll be making far more than they're ever likely to see at a RAH operated domestic carrier, with better work rules to boot.

No matter how things merged out at a F9-RAH operation, the possibilities of whipsaw are almost endless. In today's airline economy especially, I suspect heavy concessions would be demanded from the F9 pilots.

If anything, this whole deal may seem like a good deal to current RAH pilots who are salivating at the thought of becoming the next JetBlue overnight. That I certainly understand, but the history for this sort of thing isn't very promising. In point of fact, it's proven to be disastrous for everyone involved.

Stranger things have happened though. In any case, F9 pilots really have no say in any of this, which is the greatest tragedy of the whole thing.