Originally Posted by
fumje
Do they really treat regional carriers as non-fungible? E.g. if my flight is SkyWest and there is a problem, they will not consider reassigning to GoJet even if same config, but instead will force waiting for another SkyWest aircraft? It's been a while, but I can remember having a late aircraft swap at EWR to recover a 3hr delay into a 20min one. I didn't think to wonder if they swapped UAX carriers or just shuffled within the same carrier.
Operationally it makes sense to just swap one CR7 for another; logistically though it proves to be tougher since the regionals are pretty much bound to stay in their swim lane because of crew pairings and what other trips a particular aircraft may be assigned to. If for instance the GoJet aircraft was supposed to fly INDORD, ORDSTL, terminate and fly a STLDEN trip the next day, if the INDORD inbound is delayed you can't take a SkyWest aircraft to cover the ORDSTL flight because it may have been assigned to fly ORDBNA then BNAIAD and it would leave you with a SkyWest aircraft sitting in STL and it can't just be reassigned to cover a different trip operating by a different airline because you would still end up with aircraft imbalance. If it was same metal (mainline) its one thing, but its not easy to swap between regionals because each one is operating independently to the schedule that UA builds and any deviations to that would impact downline aircraft, crew, etc.