Originally Posted by axl

Our scope restricts acft based on seats and gross weight. The E170 gross weight exceeds the limit in our contract...BUT a previous UA ALPA chairman signed a side letter to our contract allowing the company to operate the E170. Mgmt claimed that if they could use the E170 as negotiating leverage with Bombardier they could get a better deal on the CRJ 70 seaters. The rest is history. BTW, this is the same Master Chairman who made a handshake agreement with management that if we would accept disproportionate pay cuts and a seriously concessionary contract they would leave our pension intact. Amazing that one guy can get fooled twice. Our pensions are long gone (planned from the beginning) and the E170 has resulted in at least 1400 pilot job losses and the parking of the ENTIRE 737 fleet. So pardon me if I don't believe a whole lot that mgmt says.

edit: I mentioned the above because the E170 is actually a 76 or 78 seat airframe. The side letter allowed the aircraft, but restricted the number of seats. This allowed for 1st class to be added.



The same was true for TED. the extra seats added made the min F/A staffing go to 4 from 3. It's my belief that 50 seaters will go away. I can see a fleet of E170s serving all of those markets and a new generation of 90-110 seaters flying as well. These can all be flown by the mainline. Some analysts have been predicting this for a long time. I think this can be a win-win-win (customers-employees-mgmt).