Originally Posted by SonicFlyer

The unions won't let them lower pay, right?

Originally Posted by rickair7777

That's not how regionals work

Inflation and/or whipsaw will do the trick nicely. But it will take time.

Originally Posted by JohnBurke

snip

Originally Posted by AerChungus

So next time there is a downturn, I would expect the legacies to start the whipsaw again as we hit the low point of the cycle in this industry. We saw it happen most recently with CommuteAir and ExpressJet and I wouldn't be surprised to see American decline to renew their pay raises with their WOs, for United to try to whipsaw Mesa, CommuteAir, and GoJet against each other, and for Delta to maybe even try to see if they can get Republic and Skywest to butt heads. All the while, a lot of the "borrowed" flying that mainlines are doing in house, e.g. SLC-STL, will get farmed back out to the 175s as scope clauses allow. Why? Because as others said, they will pay regional pilots as little as they can. And when the supply and demand curve is reversed, they will look to drive costs down all over again. This is the whole reason they kept the regionals afloat for the past 3 years, so that they could wait until the hiring environment stabilized and then bring things back to the status quo. It was cheaper than letting them fail and permanently have mainline do the flying in-house. It's the very definition of the business model; do mainline flying for the same revenue at a lower operating expense.

At least that's what's written on my tin foil hat

Originally Posted by DenainaPilot

I’m pretty sure the majors have run up against the limits of their scope clauses, hence some of the flying going back to respective mainlines. Unless management can somehow increase utilization (while remaining in the scope clause), I don’t see regionals getting more flying.
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Originally Posted by DenainaPilot

Eventually the majors will resume hiring (we are looking at you Boeing!!!), and the regionals will get caught with their pants down, again.

Originally Posted by Hedley

Aircraft deliveries are obviously slowing this hiring wave down. As a result hiring will pace expected deliveries until the legacies get to the size that they envision in their master plan and the big wave will be over. When that happens, hiring will revert to more traditional levels to replace attrition, or let attrition shrink to match demand. Attrition will also slow significantly at the regionals. At that point the legacies will start lowballing their regionals when contracts near the end to fly for lower cost or lose the flying, and the race to the bottom comes back. I don't see pay going back to previous levels, but I can see it taking a significant hit or at the very least let inflation do the work. This recent hiring environment is a once in a lifetime wave and is not anywhere close to normal. The whipsaw will return.

Originally Posted by QRH Bingo

Those companies which have not made their raises permanent will likely roll them back when able. Companies with rates as a permanent fixture in their contract will see pay stagnate when negotiations come back around as the companies refuse to renegotiate higher rates. Negotiations will drag on without a new contract or higher pay as companies dig in.

Originally Posted by cornerpocket

Boeing's foibles and follies are a convenient scape goat for mainline management. With all the retirements, mainline was/is still well short Captains before taking new aircraft deliveries into consideration. Hasn't UAL been running an "accelerated upgrade" program for the better part of a year, if not more?