wheresmyplane

This seems like the right forum to post this on - I'd like to get the opinion of some who have a better grip on the history of this if I can. There has been a lot of talk lately about the problem of "regional" airlines and lost scope and substandard pay and on and on... My question is this: Is this really a new problem? When I look at some of the airlines that existed in the past (Allegheny, Ozark, old PSA, Piedmont), I see airplanes comparable to the CRJ 900/EMB 190 such as 727's and DC-9's. I do see a lot of operators flying the expected E120's and Dash 7's and 8's (Mississippi Valley Air, ASA, Eagle), but there are more than a few flying the larger airplanes. There were even a few MD-80's and 737's in there somewhere. Now that's current mainline stuff. Is it just a matter of scope in that now these airplanes are operating as Delta/AA/CAL instead of in competition? Were these regionals grossly overequipped? Looking at the routemap it doesn't look like they were covering even as large a region as Eagle or Comair or Skywest is covering now. It also seems that if there were more companies, there would have been more pilot jobs (good for all of us). Am I missing something? How does this all factor into what we're seeing now in the industry? I would like to hear from anyone with insight into this. It's always good to know where we came from, and I'm trying to educate myself on the subject. Thanks in advance to all who respond!

Lab Rat

The carriers you mention - Allegheny, Ozark, Pacific Southwest Airlines (old PSA), Piedmont, and even the original Frontier - can trace their collective histories back to the days of the DC-3, piston Convairs and Martin 404's. They were created when air travel was just starting to get popular and they served communities either intra-state or in a specific region. I think they were called local service carriers.

Those airlines did not feed traffic to nor carry passengers for any other airline under an agreement similar to the mainline/regional agreements of today. They were their own entities flying their passengers in their aircraft.

As air travel grew and became more popular, the airlines grew to meet the demand. Lockheed Electras, Convair 580's, DC-9's and 737's entered the fleets. At one time in the 1980's, Piedmont began operating 767-200's and PSA operated at least one L-1011 in addition to other jet aircraft.

As competition increased so did mergers. PSA, Allegheny, and Piedmont became part of US Air, Ozark to TWA, and Frontier to Continental.

Here is an example. Let's say you purchased a ticket 25 years ago between Dayton and Philadelphia on Piedmont Airlines. That flight would have been operated by a Piedmont flight crew on a Piedmont aircraft (probably a 737) and you would have purchased the ticket from Piedmont Airlines.

Fast forward to today. In all likelihood if you purchase the same ticket today on a comparable route, the mainline does the marketing but the actual route is operated by a regional airline utilizing its own crews and aircraft.

Commuters of the past really only served a couple of purposes. One was to provide service to communities too small to justify using a large jet, and the other was to feed traffic from smaller communities into the larger mainline hubs. Today, regional airline route structures have grown at the expense of mainline route structures.

jtf560

And at the expense of mainline jobs and job security. They get the job done cheaper so the mainline uses them as much as possible and each time the economy goes down scope is eroded more and more. Before long I believe the legacy carriers will be doing almost no domestic stuff. ALPA has proven over and over again in the last 20 years to be rather ineffectual at stopping scope issues and I just don't see them stopping almost all domestic stuff being farmed out to cheaper competition flying bigger and bigger equipment.

wheresmyplane

Thank you for the info - I agree that all flying that says Delta/AA/CAL should be on mainline, I was just trying to see where these other regionals fit in compared to what we're seeing now.

JetMonkey

There's one other factor that came into play along with what was mentioned. The introduction of the regional jet in the 90's changed the game. Before that, smaller communities situated farther than a few hundred miles to a hub could only be served by a DC9 or a 737. Once the RJ came on line, airlines saw a way to replace that mainline high cost flying with cheaper contracted regional airlines who started ordering these new fancy jets that could fly those longer distances. As more regionals took on more rj's, so went the scope.

One of the more famous stories about this was back in 97 when the CAL pilots just finished negotiating their new contract. The agreement called for nothing more than 50 seats for a jet could be flown by a regional for their hub feed. They thought putting a 50 seat limit was strong enough language. What they didn't realize was there was no limit of jet aircraft on that agreement. The ink wasn't even dry on that new contract when Continental turned around and placed an order with Embraer for a whopping 275 regional jets (nothing larger than 50 seats of course). The CAL pilot negotiators said, "Gosh, we didn't think they were gonna order that many".

Lab Rat

With the advent of the RJ came a new way to conduct business. Not unlike the ability to perform a new job with the introduction of a new tool in the toolbox, airlines too have capitalized on the opportunity to utilize RJ's in their business plans.

In years past, an airline could open up a market with turboprops and eventually replace that flying with mainline jet aircraft once the demand was large enough to produce a profit. Now, an airline has more flexibility because it can open a market with a small jet and increase or decrease capacity at will simply by adding or removing small jets. Not good news for mainline routes, but it does give management more flexibility with less risk.

Lab Rat

Something else to look at regarding airlines of years past and their fleets. The BAe 146 was popular with two airlines on the west coast - Air Cal and PSA. PSA operated the type along side of it's 727's and MD-80's.

Due to integration into American (Air Cal) and US Air (PSA), you can find pictures of the BAe 146 in American and US Air mainline colors operated by mainline crews. The difference between then and now is that aircraft of that size are typically not operated by the mainline carrier.

MAXforwardspeed

Why? Because mainline pilots don’t protect SCOPE! Regional pilots did not cross the picket line. This was mainline flying that they gave up!

Often pilots at major airlines blame regional pilots. No pilot took your flying! You gave it up…

In the future the next generation pilot group won’t be so near sighted.

jsled

sigh. Do you suppose bankruptcy might of had something to do with it? Or was it just "gave up". I have to keep repeating myself because you guys keep coming in from college with little to no knowledge of what went down. It is no coincidence that AMR and CAL have the best scope, they did not file bankruptcy in the last decade.

deltabound

Regional "Airlines" = Actual Airlines "B-scale" pilots.

It's really that simple. Except they're really more like "C" or "D" scale pilots, depending on the regional in question.

Seemed like a good idea at the time. Pre 9/11, it certainly helped major airline pilots trade scope for other goodies, and I don't begrudge them their right to make this choice at the time. Assuming it WAS a choice, and not just an inevitable consequence of de-regulation which forced legacies to compete with upstarts with much lower costs.

Over the long haul, it's increasingly looking like it was a strategic mistake for pilots overall.