flybit

well the pilots union and United need to come to a compromise to fly these bigger planes, I dont expect "United Pilots" , to accept regional subcontractors wages, but there is no way United can pay mainline wages on these 110 seat Bombardier.
Can you imagine the growth UA could have if they started to fly these C100 to airports vs barbie jets, it would be huge.

Currently from YYZ United is getting slaughter flying to its hubs EWR/IAD flying crap E145, and, Air Canada is flying E175 or bigger.
United has NO planes going yyz-sfo/lax and AC has 8 flights a day some being widebody, United customers dont want to suffer AC when we connect in SFO to Asia.

entropy

I'm disappointed UA doesn't have at least one to SFO, but I guess they do connect a bunch of pax over SFO to UA. But its hard to be a "loyal" UA customer flying on AC, where the standard seats suck, if we got access to preferred seats it'd be different. As for the YYZ-EWR/WAS, I don't think UA is doing much O/D at all. People doing YYZ-NYC will be flying AC to LGA, and AC to DCA, and if they're going to IAD or EWR, they also have YTZ.

UA also shafted their employees in YYZ and replaced them with contractors.

CALMSP

I'd say the schedules across the border are decided on both AC and UA. so whether one is getting slaughtered and going to AC, its all in one bucket and both parties are winning.

as for the crap wages at regionals............I know quite a few who fly for regionals and they aren't doing to bad. But, all parties just need to find that gap in between, hopefully sooner rather than later as many of us would love to see the CS come into the fleet.

spin88

Well Delta could reach an agreement, and has the c100 coming shortly, flown by Mainline pilots. They also got the 717, flown by mainline pilots. Now its always possible that the UA unions are more cray cray, and totally unreasonable, but I expect they are basically taking the same line that the DL pilots took. This suggests the issue is UA's management, not the pilots. @:-)

amtrakusa

Well, how do you know? DL and NW always had a type of similar gauge before. it is simply transition from DC9s to MD80s to 717s to CS1, nothing much needs to change there. UA situation is very different.

minnyfly

Currently for UA IAD-YYZ is 3 out of 4 E175. And U.S./Canada traffic is dominated by Canadian point of sale, giving Canadian carriers the advantage. With no joint venture in place on cross-border routes, it's no surprise that the home country AC has the edge in capacity over UA.

DL pilots - and this is going back to the NW/DL days - are, for the lack of a better word, pushovers. They really sold the farm years ago and management laughed all the way to the bank. They trusted management, and the brass used it against them.

They've toughened up now, but I still wouldn't put them on the same level as UA pilots. The UA union is cagey. I doubt they will give up more scope. I don't know if UA needs them to concede though. It's not like they're way short. As an example, even after DL's acquisition of 91 717s, that only gave them 158 narrowbodies in the A319/73G/717 range. UA used to have more than DL and currently stands at 106. Meanwhile AA only has 125 A319s. It's not like UA has a skewed ratio. It's actually right there. Looks to me that UA needs larger narrowbodies, and they a steady stream of them again starting this year.

prestonh

yes, UA made 1.445 bil. less after tax income less than DL did in 2017.

amtrakusa

so what, every year is different. in the last few years, UA is at a disadvantage due to strong domestic travel and weak international environment. Everyone knows about it, and it is being addressed. IN a few years, the table could easily turn around.

do you work for a company that has the best margin in your industry? if not, can I say your company has no reasons to exist and therefore sucks?

EWR764

United's pilot agreement has rates for the CRJ900, E190, E195, CS100 and CS300. CS100 rates are banded with the E190/195. There does not need to be any agreement from the pilots for the CS100; UA could bring them online tomorrow if it wanted to.

The scope issue has to do with the weights of the next-gen regional jets (E2, MRJ), which exceed the MGTOW limit of 86,000lb for a "regional aircraft" under the UPA. Anything above 86k on behalf of United must be flown by mainline. I do not see UAL MEC giving up ground on that provision easily, if at all.

DALPA under Moak became a much different beast.

Delta also has a narrowbody fleet of about 130 more frames than UA, while AA has nearly 200 more. While all of the gap need not be made up by a small narrowbody (CSeries) size, UA clearly is looking to close the it somehow, and it is likely that they intend to grow the 76-seat regional fleet.

spin88

I did not realize they already had a rate (although I guess am not suprised). So then this is 110% in managements court. If they want more big RJs, they need to add more mainline, period. They can't grow small (or Large) RJs w/ growing mainline as they are at their caps now as I recall.

So what I don't understand is what the hell was Kirby talking about negotiation with the pilots about? The answer it would seem is "want more big RJs, well pull down 50 seaters 2-1 as our deal states, or add more narrowbodies, your choice."

fly18725

To be more specific, if United wants more large RJs under the current pilot contract they need to add a new aircraft type, e.g. from Bombardier or Embraer. There's an interesting discussion to be had about the merits of both products and whether the ability to add more E175s justifies a) the cost of adding a new type, and b) the degradation a smaller narrowbody will cause.

I think you're reading too much into Kirby's comments. United felt it needed more capacity in the regional market and its only option at this point is to add 50 seaters. I don't think the company or the pilots are sure what the next move is. What is clear is that you can't make a the spur-of-the-moment decisions worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

EWR764

Sort of. The only way to trigger the higher cap on 76-seaters is to add a New Small Narrowbody (NSNB) type in sufficient numbers, per the formula. The NSNB can only be the E190/195/CS100 (717 counts too but there aren't enough that don't fly around with a Widget on their tail). The CS300 does not count. I don't think United is very interested in the CS100, and my guess is Delta won't take a single CS100 more than they absolutely must, as the CS300 will really be the winner of that aircraft family, and a perfect replacement for the Delta Mad Dogs.

What I think is happening, behind the scenes, is United wants to tie a substantial E195E2 order for mainline to scope relief up to the 98k MGTOW of the E175E2, which UA would then order for Express. The 175E2 will be an excellent airplane but is dead in the water unless one US major caves on the 86k MGTOW. The 195E2 would be ideal for United, because it hits the 120-seat category with a very efficient platform. I think Kirby is on the record suggesting (or stating outright) that the 100-seat category really doesn't make sense with mainline economics, but 120 seats with the efficiency of the 195E2 would probably be a sweet spot. The existing 195 has a negative reputation and I don't think UA wants any part of it.

If this is indeed the plan, I'm not sure exactly how United intends to achieve it with a pilot group that seems fixed on protecting scope at all costs, but it will be interesting to see play out. Management wouldn't come back to the bargaining table early unless there was something it wanted.

minnyfly

For kicks let's say it a different way isolated on the revenue side of the equation. For the average UA flyer at the average UA stage length (1,460 mi), it means UA flyers paid $221.92 instead of $242.50 to travel from point A to point B, and they did it more reliably to boot. UA is a good deal.

LarryJ

We have the CS100 and CS300 payrates in the current contract. CS100 is the same as E190/E195. The CS300 payrate is the same as the A319 and 737-700. (That's what the 'paybanding' means) There's also a payrate for the CRJ900 which is the lowest payrate in the current contract.

If they added the CS100 or E190/E195 the current SCOPE would allow them to add additional 70/76-seaters operated by regional airlines. They could add an unlimited number of 70/76-seat airplanes as long as United pilots flew them. We have a rate for the CRJ-900. The similarly-sized E170/175 is not covered but the procedure for adding a fleet that isn't listed is covered. The procedure allows for the process to be completed within 180 days included binding arbitration, if necessary, and specifically says that it will not prevent the company from introducing the new aircraft before an agreement is reached. They can introduce the new aircraft paying no less than the lowest existing rate which is the CRJ-900 rate. Obviously, they don't want to pay us that rate to fly those airplanes.

Delta has the CS100 on order and their payrate is 18%-19%, depending on longevity, HIGHER than the rate in the United pilot agreement. UAL could put them online ASAP and operate then at a nearly 20% discount to DAL on the pilot rates.

He hasn't given specifics. One can only speculate that he wants to be able to fly more 70/76-seaters at regional airlines than the current SCOPE allows.

demkr

Its funny how they say this and they keep downgauging SFO-MsP/DFW/STL to RJs.