Jack Bauer

This was said circa 1999 before the explosive proliferation of RJ's that would end up taking nearly half of all US mainline flying.

“The results of passenger surveys over the past couple years have convinced airline executives that when passengers ride feeder airlines, they will go on the feeder that has RJ’s. No jets, no passengers, no feed for the “Big Iron”. Right now United’s feeders are way behind other airlines in terms of firm orders for RJ’s, causing United to be less competitive as the customer’s preference for the next few years.

In my opinion, we have to have feeder jets, soon. If we start to lose customers because we are still operating props, then the “Big Iron” flights become marginally profitable. The feeders become less profitable in their relationship with United and either demand a bigger share of the price of the ticket or move on to another larger airline. I would like to see the customers kept happy.”

On a separate note, how did SWA ever survive without the "me too" of adding regional jets?

gloopy

Not to mention, if management really wants/needs RJ lift in whatever capacity, DL, UAL, SWA, etc pilot groups can fly unlimited amounts with no restrictions. As to the myths about how its not profitable at a mainline, the numerous billions spent on management mistakes (too numerous to list in a short post) directly related to outsourced ACMI RJ lift, including bleeding the coffers with yield trashing spawns like IndyAir, Republic Air Group and soon SkyWest, among many others, proves that insourcing may be the only long term way to operate them profitably in the first place.

TonyWilliams

They came very close to having SkW operate E170's for them in 2008.

Flyby1206

SWA doesnt fly the "Big Iron" like the original post talked about.

Boomer

Good a thing Delta owns, runs, and controls 100% of Comair. That's almost like being insourced.

It's kinda like being mommy's favorite kid. (When it's time for beatings).

xkuzme1

Southwest doesnt have to fly to every po-dunk airport on the globe to be able to fill seats on their international market.

JungleBus

Well, they were very correct about the need for feed, as well as the reluctance of passengers to fly on small turboprops circa 1999 (the "Scary Mary" Schiavo era). Detractors point to SWA's lack of feed but SWA essentially only flies routes that don't require feed to operate profitably.

The interesting thing is that they immediately jump from "we need feed" to "we must approve this outsourcing immediately." Those are two very different subjects and there was little to nothing said about the link between them. It was simply assumed that because the turboprops had been outsourced, the RJs would be too. You can see a very direct progression over the years from the earliest commuter codeshares when they were flying navajos, to small turboprops, to 30 seat turboprops, to 35-50 seat RJs, to 70 seat RJs, to 75-88 seat small mainliners. Slippery slope arguments are generally considered logical fallacies but in this case the slope was slippery indeed.

gloopy

Yep, that's my point. 2 billion for CMR only to write it down to zero, another billion on a strike trusting keystone cop-like middle managers who kept saying "don't worry, we got it covered like a jimmy hat!", another 1.5 billion for ASA only to flip it almost immediately for 0.5 billion, and then the sheer cost of the long term FFD contracts for RJ's when fuel spiked and DL was stuck paying for leases and fuel for other airlines to bleed their coffers dry. Not to mention the massive over-ordering (many, many billions more, all paid for by DL) of so many of the soon to be insanely inefficient planes to begin with.

Then there is another decade worth of loss of operational synnergies as our brilliant managers flailed around carving up their hubs with their "portfolio concept" to avoid the effects of another strike even though by that time the entire industry was in full on race to the bottom, deal management an ace, pay for upgrade backstabbery. The half of the flying that is the mainline group is told how critical it is to hurry up and harness those synnergies yet the other half that is the regionals are forced separate with extreme prejudice. That cost is much harder to put a price tag on, but having so many little virtual airlines carving up every single city pair with no synnergies or operational integrity has to be expensive.

And DL pays for it all, 100%, including the long term debt for these fake little ACMI air groups.

Not to mention the costs of euthanizing dellusional fare trashing competitors created with these very wasted billions, like ACA, Republic and soon to be SkyWest.

I'd say a very conservative estimate of the management blunders for the outsourced RJ era is easily in the 5 to 10 billion dollar range, and that's just at one airline and that's not even counting the bonuses to the little hatchet men who trolled their parent airlines so very, very hard, riding off into the sunset with vaults of money as their epic fail MBA experiment smoldered in the background like uncle Owen and aunt Beru's place from Star Wars after the Empire came looking for the very droids that were, indeed, the ones they were looking for. I doubt it would have cost 5 to 10 billion extra to over the years to operate RJ's at mainline, particularly over the last decade+ of contracts that still act like its 09-12-2001.

Flyby1206

Southwest has an international market? Thats news to me. And no, Airtran flying some token flights to the Caribbean does not count as an international network

RJs do have a place in a competitive environment for global networks. Mainline management has exploited regional carriers beyond their useful limits, and has destroyed the RJ for all future airlines in the US.

"50 seaters" have been around for a long time, but in the recent decade they have been used in a way that deteriorates the industry as a whole.

forgot to bid

Like someone said, we spend billions buying Comair, billions fixing it up and billions liquidating it.