Jazz splitting into two operating units
 

From here.

"In order to achieve the right economics with the older fleet of Dash 8-100 and Dash 8-300 aircraft, the business will consist of two operating units. The first unit, which is Jazz, will transition to a mix of larger, newer aircraft comprised of Q400, CRJ 200 and CRJ705 aircraft. The creation of a second airline will address the requirement for improved economics of the older Dash 8-100/300 fleet. This unit will be similar to Air Canada's rouge as it will have its own work force."

As well, new Q400s have been ordered and a rebuilding of the -300 fleet has been ordered.

I'm waiting for Rouge to have it's own discount sub-division.

this is going to be so much fun!
i cant wait till PLeblond and others will tell us how this is a positive.
ROUGE Jazz!

I don't see it as a positive, but do you REALLY see it as a negative?

I certainly don't, to me this looks like a strictly corporate restructuring issue.

I'm trying to think of both sides, and honestly I see virtually no benefits or downsides to this.

I don't see how they'll be able to squeeze more seats into the Dash-8's a la rouge and can they really pay pilots and FA's even less than their already lower than AC rates?

Suspect this has more to do with union issues relating to seniority of crews and new hires. There won't be any configuration changes on the older series of Dash8s, just some refurbs of the 300 series and likelihood of junior crews/new hires.

The new starting pilot wage is extremely low, it be a significant cost savings for Chorus.

Are the DH3s going to get updated cabins? Some of those planes are really showing their age, especially compared to the new Q400s.

I also didn't realize the new Q400s were coming with 78 seats... I wonder why AC didn't order the initial planes with more seats?

This is a positive, because it clearly is.

Agreed, I don't see them adding seats. There's no room and there's also no need. Those Dash 8s fly with lots of empty seats as it is (in my anecdotal experience) but they remain consistent and thus they keep the destinations/aircrafts around.

I think you're probably right on the crew thing. But Jazz already hires the youngest of the pilots that they're willing to so I'm wondering how that'll go.

I used to work for CMA and we hired the YOUNGEST of the young pilots, who basically would ladder up to Jazz and hopefully eventually either WS, AC or elsewhere, but pretty much all of them went Jazz after getting their time in on the Beech 1900s.

So I'm wondering if that's what AC wants to do in house, hire those super young pilots (at their joke wages) and run the super short haul flights YVR-YYJ etc and let them get hours there before "re-hiring" them to move up to the Q400s etc.

That's similar to what WS is doing (AFAIK) with Encore, by providing a career/upgrade path to mainline WS.

Air Canada confirms in their release a formalized upgrade path for pilots to AC from Jazz.

But this is the key to the whole thing IMO:

So this means possibly red duct tape now all over these old aircraft instead of grey duct tape! :p

As mentioned above, many of these Dash interiors are in a worse state than many airlines in the developing world. Not a good showing.

One assumes a interior refresh when they rebuild the -300s. + the -100s are going away.

Anyone have pay information and how the new pilot wages are versus the US? I've seen some of the numbers for the US...they must really love flying.