OK, I may be a little biased as a CHQ captain and union rep, but I think I can shed a little light:
First a little background on our structure. Chautauqua Airlines is owned by Republic Airways Holdings, a management scheme shell corporation. RAH has the same officers, address, and phone as CHQ, but is a separate company if you ask the management. RAH is in turn owned by WexAir LLC, a division of Wexford Holdings, our true owners. Wexford is a $1 million minimum balance private investment house that owns a myriad of other companies. These happen to include Shuttle America and a $3 million DIP loan to Midway.
About a year and a half ago we at CHQ put the original J4J to a vote and voted it down. This was the all-captain-pay, permanent furlough protection, superseniority version of J4J which basically had nothing in it for us and everything for our furloughed mainline bretheren. We knew that a no vote meant no further growth with USAir, but it seemed appropriate at the time.
About 9 months ago RAH announced that they were seeking FAA approval for a company called Republic Airlines, Inc. (RAI). This company is an alter-ego union contract-busting clone of CHQ. According to the official management statement, the purpose of RAI is to obtain the USair J4J business that we voted down. This is no longer relevent as we have now voted on the LOA 83 version of J4J and approved it. However, our management still feels that it''s appropriate to go ahead with RAI. Our current understanding is that U-ALPA will not endorse RAI, and will instead force U to place any J4J aircraft on the existing CHQ certificate, under our Contract.
Let me get to the point, CHQ is currently in very painful and drawn out negotiations with our pilots, and our FA''s are ammendable next month. RAI was simply created as an attempt by management to funnel work away from CHQ and therefore weaken our bargaininag position. It is an alter-ego carrier in every definition. Any support of RAI is a slap in the face to the 1200 union-represented professionals that have kept CHQ running as a top-rated regional for 30 years.
Please spare me the "bad CHQ experience" or "idiot company" etc. posts here. Those kind of replies are missing the point. Somebody was looking for info on Republic and why it''s bad, so I''ve laid it our here..
..CT