Freedom is in fact an alter-ego. The only reason this seems to bother some is that it was not the brain child of ALPA or formed so that the unionized top 20% would gain somehow for it....
Alter-ego carriers I can think of:
1. MidAtlantic, will shrink the WO commuters to nothing and offer them not one thing until the furloughed mainline pilots get theirs first. MDA will take mainline flying and place it in the hands of lower paid pilots who live by lesser work rules and fly smaller jets.
2. Patomac, shrunk Piedmont in routes and planes. Was OK with ALPA and the AAA MEC because they were after all only commuter pilots and it was for the greater good of the U-UAL merger. Right? Wrong, it was on its way to court and fell just short when the aircraft and routes were given back.
3. How about MetroJet? Flew older aircraft under lesser work rules for less money.......
Based on what I am hearing which is that only mainline pilots have the true right to fly the skies in search of commerce, isn't any RJ pilot a scab in definition? Aren't they limited in Career expectation by a little charm called a "Scope Clause"? Maybe everyone should visit the RJDC website.
If the Freedom guys are pseudo-scabs for not being union, what does that make the Mesa pilots who are now flying RJ's on the 737, F-100 & DC-9 routes of the furloughed U pilots? How is it that that Freedom is the evil job taker when in fact it was the Mesa MEC and ALPA National who cost every employee at CCair thier jobs after they had themselves voted in a conract which would have preserved their airline, jobs, and brought to them both an increase in pay and new RJ's?
Another thing which needs explaining is what is the difference between Freedom Airlines and Republic Airlines? Both started by the same corporate structure which already ownes a unionized regional airline with one major difference. Republic is being started for one reason and one reason only, to get around the CHQ pilots "no" vote for Jets4Jobs. Freedom Airlines was started to get around not the Mesa union, but the USAirways scope which prohibited them from flying in ANY LIVERY an aircraft over 50 passengers or 60,000 lbs. What this means is that when America West went to Mesa Air Group management and ask for larger RJ's, Mesa Airlines was prohibited from free enterprise due to their relationship with USAirways. The only way to retain certain routes out of PHX was to start a completely separate entity from Mesa Airlines.
USAirways MEC and ALPA created Freedom Airlines. Freedom exists because of scope and scope alone. I find it incredible that at a carrier which was created due to their own policy, the U MEC would even think of preventing over 500 of their own furloughed pilots from obtaining badly needed employment in a time when their ranks of furloughed pilots will grow to more than 1,800! USAirways is dying on the vine, will cease to exist without revenue which was ask for in the form of a significant influx of RJ's more than a year and a half ago. In that time and with not one single additional RJ, USAirways as parked more aircraft and furloughed more pilots than any other carrier....
To all I wish a happy new year! I toasted last night to brighter airline leadership, less radical union leadership, and for the travel bug to bite the american public very hard in 2003.