Santos Dumont

You would be right. I admit defeat. It's 341-348 that are "owned" by Mesa. bnkangle was correct.

brigadeaviator

Schedules out on crewpay

Sniper66

Piedmont
Since you asked
but I do know enough since I worked way back at the day with no dues for Hughes ALPA matters

PHL

calmwinds

A little shocked no one made light of the Ejet email on IAH performance. I think it was sent out showing positive news. But, it actually shows the opposite:

Cancellation percentage:

ExpressJet 2.9% cancellations
SkyWest 2.4% cancellations
Mesa 3.8% cancellations
Republic 3.6% cancellations

Mesa is the worse regional at IAH at cancellations.

Republic is second worse, but they are picking up our flying that we cannot do. They do not have a base in IAH.

ExpressJet is still the largest regional at IAH. Flying 55% more than we do at IAH. No wonder the rumors at Bloomberg that United is in talks with SkyWest to buy ExpressJet. Too bad their upgrade time is 6 years and they fly 145’s.

Which leaves me with “why is SkyWest is here at IAH?” unless they are simply holding onto the base thinking we will fail and they will swoop in with their excess 175 pilots and take over our flying.

CaptSwift

I don’t think that at least for the next year or so SKYW will be able to “swoop in with excess 175 pilots”. Especially with the 40 or so 175s that are going to be taken delivery of just this year..

Santos Dumont

For a long time Republic was the only E-Jet operator for United, they did a lot of flying at IAH, IAD, DEN and EWR without having bases in any of those places. They crewed everything out of their midwestern outstations. Eventually they opened a base in EWR and they are pretty much out of IAD with our E-Jets there, though they do show up there every once in a blue moon. They still have hubs (by definition) in IAH and DEN, just not crews based there. If you think about it, they do the same thing we do with our E-Jets in IAD. Back in the day, when Republic was having serious staffing issues before their bankruptcy Mesa and SkyWest had to speed up the incorporation of their E-Jets into service to cover routes that were supposed to be flown by Republic.

Yes, our performance sucks, and if things don't change really quickly something will have to happen. But all I'm saying is that Republic covering some of our flying does not necessarily mean is the end of the world. We did the same for them a few years ago...

The 145 side of ExpressJet (LXJT) being bought by United is not surprising at all. ExpressJet was actually created as the wholly-owned regional of Continental and they even had a true flow-through back in the day, just like the original American Eagle and American Airlines did/do.

As far as SkyWest holding on to IAH waiting for us to collapse, yeah, there can be some of that I guess. But I think is simply the company not wanting to close the base to avoid creating unnecessary inconvenience to the crews that are still based there. Remember SkyWest actually thinks about their people. It's a win-win situation, they keep their Houston pilots happy (those that are senior enough to hold IAH) and they save money on hotels in Houston. While their United flying has been reduced out of IAH, they support the American and Delta operation out of there too.

calmwinds

Since Xjet merged their pilot list after the ATL closure, I would think it would be difficult to pull just the E145 pilots out.

I have also been told by a United CA that they aren’t seriously looking to buy Xjet and that it was just wishful thinking on management’s part. I guess they could buy all of Xjet and drop the American side and move those pilots over to United regional flying.

I am not sure the benefit to SkyWest to sell Xjet either. SkyWest is the largest regional in the United system and why sell part of your United business to United. I guess if the price was right.

And, I don’t think Republic covering part of our flying is bad necessarily. But between us not able to staff the planes we have, United having to pay a premium to Republic for our inability to staff planes, and our cancellation rate because of our inability to staff planes, something is going to happen. The only positive thing too look at is Republic’s pitiful performance out of IAH is about the same as ours.

No Land 3

Trying to figure out the regional world is a fools errand. It’s all smoke and mirrors, and everyone is trying to stab each other in the back far worse and with more complication than a “Game of Thrones” book series.
Only safeguard you have is your seniority number, how many sacrificial lambs are below you to absorb the bullets coming your way.
The secret to winning is getting out ASAP, not sitting on the iron throne(senior living on base).

calmwinds

I would bet some pilots would say the same thing about the major world. Except, their worry about seniority number is more surrounding avoiding furlough.

No Land 3

Majors are not doing contract work, but still a race to the bottom as everyone is discovering the Spirit business model is what passengers truly want.