AA announces large RJ order

[FM2436]

UsAirways 2 wholly owned express carriers are Piedmont and PSA.  We now know that PSA is in safe mode.  The next BIG question is what will happen to Piedmont, with all those senior crews, flying those ready to retire Dash-8's.  Are any of American Eagle express carriers wholly owned ?????  If they are, maybe those 60 175's will go to them.  It doesn't make any sense to me that we would buy 60 new planes to hand over to a contract carrier.  If I am wrong please fill me in.

I'd hope the top heavy new American management, coming from US Airways, does not ignore Piedmont.  The fact remains there are many small and larger non-hub (75,000+ enplanements) markets in the northeast and mid-Atlantic that generate a huge amount of feeder traffic through Philadelphia and Charlotte.  To abondon that passenger feed to other air carriers would be a huge loss.  Besides, trying to maintain service into these markets with any aircraft (RJ) type other than a fleet of Q-400s (or ATRs) would be cost prohibitive.  Many of these small and larger non-hub markets could also support point-to-point, hub-bypass, service using turboprops.

 

[WorldTraveler]

new AA will have a lot more large RJs than they have had in the past... but remember that they also need to increase their presence in medium sized markets from both DFW and ORD and many of those markets are long enough distances such that the number of airplanes will be used up fairly quickly relative to the number of opportunities.

Further, the Ejets will be used in the most competitive markets which largely means in big east coast markets and ORD as well as longhaul DFW markets.

 

[will fix for food]

Parker has been quoted as saying the divestiture is off. This aircraft order has been talked about within the airline for a while now. The numbers were spot on. We knew PSA was getting the 30 CRJ's because of them accepting the concessions that Eagle rejected. It is fairly clear they want to give the 175's to Eagle but they want a few more concessions from the pilots. These concessions will probably be linked to some sort of guaranteed flow. A VP that was in a meeting I attended cryptically said that the long range goal was to move the 700's to PSA and make them a 700/900 operator and make Eagle a 145/175 operator with an Eagle fleet around 200-225 aircraft. In fact the 140 retirements were delayed because the 175's couldn't be brought online in time. Piedmont was not mentioned.

The Eagle ground services is making big cash apparently and picking up new stations.

The new name should be out within a few weeks. Rumor is it is Envoy.

APA has made a play to fly the 175's. I think the chances of this are around nil since they are saying the Eagle pilots costs are too much for the margin. BTW, I wonder when we are going to stop being called high cost. The pilots and mechanics are both going to be pay indexed to "the average of the two most competitive airlines". In effect we will always be payed second to worst. Additionally the topped out pilots are flowing to American very quickly. In short order we will have better costs than the other regionals.

Whew, that was long. How does WT do that every two minutes?

 

[luvthe9]

PILOTS SHOULD READ THIS.......A Declaration Of War............More ominous for AAL pilots is the provision in their new CLA with US Airways that provides an exception for the hard metrics to grow the mainline when the regional feed is upsized. The exception provides that if AMR irrevocably obligates itself to acquire new R-Js prior to the effective date of the US Airways/APA Conditional Labor Agreement, APA pilots have to suck up the disparity by not having any way to obligate US Airways to inflate the mainline accordingly.............   http://www.operationorange.org/2012/06/a-declaration-of-war/

 

[AirwAr]

...
The new name should be out within a few weeks. Rumor is it is Envoy.
...

 
Are you saying that Eagle is to be renamed Envoy?  Or is that just the ground services piece?

 

[AdAstraPerAspera]

While I'm no route planner, I would hope DCA is one of the places.

 
So i just heard from a source that Republic-operated Frontier flights from DCA to MCI, OMA and MSN are ending in June. The slots used to operate these flights are owned by Republic, not Frontier. Any ideas as to the fate of these slots? Can AA use them if they are operated by Republic?

 

[FWAAA]

AA cannot acquire any more slots at DCA without permission from the feds, and there's no end-run possible if AA contracts with someone else who owns or leases slots.   What happens to those slots?   Whatever Republic/Frontier want to do with them, except use them for AA's benefit.   

 

[USFlyer]

If I read the settlement correctly, AA-US cannot reacquire the slots being divested.  I didn't see a restriction on other slots bought on the open market.  Each slot has a unique serial number.  That said, I may have just missed it in the fine print.
 
Republic could operate them on its own with a codeshare to someone else.

 

[eolesen]

Technically, AA can acquire new slots, but they can't materially increase the percentage of operations at either DCA or LGA beyond the rate they're at post-divestiture.

The only way they can get new slots is to dispose of slots, unless new slots get created.

 

[FWAAA]

Section XIII of the agreement requires AA to notify the DoJ of any acquisition of any interest in DCA slots that, as eolesen said, would increase  AA's percentage of slots:
 
http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f301600/301624.pdf
 
Until the competitive landscape changes at DCA, I'd expect the DoJ to deny permission.   

 

[will fix for food]

Are you saying that Eagle is to be renamed Envoy?  Or is that just the ground services piece?

Eagle meaning Simmons

 

[Bob Owens]

Eagle used to be a feeder of Passengers to AA, now its a feeder of Employees to AA. that well is drying up fast.

 

[AirwAr]

Eagle meaning Simmons

 
So, the wholly owned carrier that was Eagle, is rumored to be renamed Envoy?  Can we assume then, that AA would continue to use the American Eagle name representing all it's regional flying...whether Envoy, PSA, Skywest, etc?

 

[will fix for food]

So, the wholly owned carrier that was Eagle, is rumored to be renamed Envoy?  Can we assume then, that AA would continue to use the American Eagle name representing all it's regional flying...whether Envoy, PSA, Skywest, etc?

Exactly.

 

[RJcasualty]

Going against the grain, seems to me there could be some advantage in keeping at least some regional flying in-house. Not the least a ready stable of pilots and a quick reaction force to deploy in case the sub-contractors or legacy competitors cause trouble.