If some of you are thinking "all regional carriers suck" because of all the comments regarding ASA, Mesa and CO Express... keep in mind that GoJets and Skywest are amazingly good regional operations.

Good point. I have definitely had good experiences with Skywest and some with Comair too ( ^ to those GSO-based crews), which help make up for those regional carrier nightmares caused by ASA and Colgan. Thanks for injecting a little optimism into this thread, MileageAddict . :)

On a recent trip, I got to fly United Airlines mainline, GoJet as United Express, Atlantic Southeast Airlines as Delta Connection, and Delta Airlines mainline.

GoJet was the most pleasant, nicer than United mainline.

ASA was 15 minutes late in departing PWM due to late arrival at the gate of the previous flight. They did not do a good job cleaning the plane in the rush job to get the plane back in the air, but they did fly fast to make up the time so that it landed at ATL on time (which was a nice thing, since we had only a one hour connection time to catch the Delta mainline flight -- although that flight turned out to be delayed by 25 minutes, and did not fly any faster to catch up to the schedule).

Both GoJet and ASA were on CRJ-700 planes. Under seat carryon space was larger (taller) than in United or Delta's mainline planes.

A few years ago, I flew on an ExpressJet as Continental Express Embraer plane. It was small, but ok. The 1-2 seating meant that I got both a window and an aisle. But carryon space was tiny.

No that honor belongs to Southwest.

While speaking with an agent today on the service desk that I have come to know well, she remembered a comment I had made about ASA a couple of weeks ago. She had never flown them at the time I made the comment and she had been with DL over 20 years.

So she was telling me today she finally had a chance to fly them last week and I asked her if they lost her luggage, they were late or both. She laughed and said the were late.....both ways! :D

She didn't even try to put me on an ASA flight today when trying to get me home after over sleeping this morning and missing my flight.

I can't believe anyone with a consience would fly GoJets.

Because?

I've never even heard of them and now this? What's up with GoJets, HRDiva?

Found this on a google search. From a pilots blog.....

So why is GoJets such a problem? It’s the nature of the GoJets business model. You see GoJets was designed as a way to circumvent the union at Trans States Airlines. TSA Holdings owns by GoJets and TSA and has created GoJets because the TSA pilot group refused to fly 70 seat regional jets for sub industry standard wages. It is generally accepted that regional airline pay scales are already low and anything that makes them lower is bad. But what TSA Holdings did with GoJets goes beyond trying to simply pay pilots less. With this move, TSA Holdings has said to the world that unions don’t matter and any attempt to raise the quality of life for pilots will be stomped down by management creating a sister company that will operate outside the bounds of the original union.

Normally this is illegal, but TSA holdings has found a way around current labor laws. The problem now is that anybody that takes a job at GoJets fully knows that the job they are taking is there has no other purpose than to screw another pilot group. Imagine if you will that you worked at McDonnalds. McDonnalds decided they you were paid too much, and said that they wanted you take a paycut so that McDonnalds could continue to grow. When you refused, McDonnalds opened a McDons next door you, paying the employee’s there less than you do. After a year or two, McDonnalds would point to McDons and say “See? You have to take a pay cut now, McDons employee’s are willing to work for less than you do, so we don’t have any reason to keep you employed at your current pay rate.”

Sounds to me like some folks just do not want to face the changes taking place in this profession. The market has changed and what a pilot gets paid is not going to increase in the future, it is going to decrease. Sorta like many years ago when my father was a firemen on the railroad (for you young folks he was the guy that kept coal in the steam engines). Things change. It was a great paying job but was hard hot work. Oh yeah, it was a union job too.

How many firemen have you send riding a freight train lately?

Trans States has been profitable. TSA has a contract in place with negotiated rates for larger aircraft. TSA entered into an agreement with United to fly larger 70 seat aircraft. However, the agreement they have with American has scope language that prohibits them from flying the larger aircraft (only Eagle pilots fly the 70 seaters). So, they got another certificate to use for the United flying and called it GoJets. All understandable.

But, then they refused to honor the negotiated rates for the larger aircraft. Instead of having pilots work for both entities under one seniority list, they hired pilots off the street to staff GoJets. That is not the norm--for example, CHQ and Republic have one list. Republic flies 70 seaters, CHQ doesn't. But a pilot at CHQ could bid to go fly the 70 seater at Republic. TSA also began switching a lot of flying that was being done by TSA in the J41's to GoJets and furlouging TSA pilots and downgrading captains. First they furloughed. Then they realized they furloughed too many so they recalled some. Then they realized they recalled too many so they furloughed again. They tried to do it out of seniority order. When the union protested, they resorted to firing pilots. With things in such bad shape, there's been a lot of attrition. TSA, instead of recalling furloughed pilots, began hiring off the street. And they can't get enough pilots to go to GoJets, so they just substitute TSA equipment and crews for the flights.

Sounds like a great company to me! Sound morals, sound ethics and sound business planning.

I disagree with this. It is going to take a few years but the supply and demand on this will shift again. Kids that are leaving high school right now aren't seeing flying airplanes as a very attractive career option. Right now there is a pilot surplus. However, I think that more are leaving the industry (for retirement and other reasons) than are coming into it. For now, that is a good thing. I think demand is already creaping back up and at some point there will be a pilot shortage, raising pay. I don't know on what time frame this will happen but it could change about as quickly as it changed to the way we are now (5 years or so). I am in the large minority here at FlyerTalk. I think that every damn pilot out there is underpaid....especially for the regional carriers. I know you all think they are glorified bus drivers but when the crap is on the line, I want the very best that money can buy sitting in that pilots seat. I really can't think of many jobs out there that ought to be making more money.

I opined in July that I thought ASA was running America's worst airline. Sure enough, the July stats have now come out and -- get ready for this -- only 42% of ASA's July flights were on time! Is that an all-time record low by any airline? It would seem that it might be.

I wonder if there has been any subsequent improvement. Any observations?

The restroom has been closed for over a month. As a pregnant woman who flies into and out of Terminal D on a regular basis, the line out the door of the ladies' room next to the Chili's in D is just ridiculous!

Why are there FOUR flights going out of one small gate? There are never enough seats and people are constantly getting moved to different gates. Since there are no monitors (and since the gate monitors don't show the change) I've seen person after person approach the gate agent and ask where their flight is. For those that don't fly often it can be confusing and bewildering. For the gate agents, it can be difficult to be constantly interrupted asking about gates instead of concentrating on the task at hand (getting the scheduled flights out the door). Just a bad situation all around; one that could be recitified with more monitors and displays showing correct information.

ASA just seems to be bumbling along, with inadequately trained staff who are "thrown to the lions" every day trying to fend off savvy travelers who know how it SHOULD work. sigh. :rolleyes:

We had a Delta/ASA boondoggle this weekend and I have told everyone that will listen--never Delta, never again!! I am not a road warrior but fly several times a year. We always fly Continental and from now on will never even consider Delta. Incoming flight delayed for "maintenance" from Atlanta causing missed connections all the way through. I understand the need for maintenance, but overheard agents say this flight has been "maintenance" delayed every day this week!!! The desk area was in turmoil and the agent overwhelmed. Impossible connections were re-booked with added legs for us, we were told our delayed flight would leave at 2p which would have had us make connections, it was posted as leaving at 3:20, agent told one passenger we would get out of there at 4p thus causing missed connections by most of passengers when reaching Atlanta. I was given incorrect boarding pass for one link, ended up overnighting in Atlanta. Our experience with the D concourse was the same as prev. mentioned--bathroom a LONG way from gates, many flights leaving from one gate, gates changed frequently, seemed disorganized. Yes, they got me to my final destination, just 24 hours late!

ASA is the worst
 

Yes, ASA is definitely the worst airline ever - poorly trained employees, flts never on time, luggage never with the flight. I live in a city served by ASA, and if I head east sometimes I don't have a choice of anything other than ASA. My flt back last weekend was an hour and a half late, which is normal. However, even with the extra time, my luggage didn't make the flight. There were 20 people on that flight who didn't get their luggage.

I foolishly scheduled a flt on ASA next weekend with 1:45 connection time in Atlanta, and i already know I'm not going to make it - ridiculous.

I have seen a few accolades for Skywest on here, but they deserve some blame for continuing the shoddy ASA performance.