I DID NOT WANT TO GO HERE -- #ALPA
After a long career of studying/advocating for small community commercial air service, if I did not accept the fact that today's regional air service architecture needs a major overhaul then I could not be a true student of the sector.
My current thinking, unlike in 2013-2016, is the 1500-hour rule will not get changed. Thus, it is now time to begin thinking about ideas that might lead to creating some new opportunities - like infrastructure consolidation.
Yep, time to think about third rail issues because structural factors impeding change will likely not get changed -- yet again. Zero-sum games are hard to solve for AND it is a failure not to try.
1) Small airports with less than X daily frequencies to a hub cannot compete for business/leisure traffic with alternative airports within a reasonable driving distance that have a long menu of service offerings and carrier choice available to the consumer.
2) The economics of small jet flying are under water. The wage rate increases won by regional and mainline pilots since 2013 have contributed to making it uneconomic. Add in $100/bbl. oil. Add in the R&D costs of a new airplane in the 30-50 seat category. Affordable fares cannot be charged to cover these costs. Passengers once using the regional airport will drive to find alternative options which they are doing today.
3) Federal programs that work to subsidize/incent air service to small communities refuse to recognize the above, yet we continue to spend good money after the impossible (sustainable small jet service). Use the funds to train pilots and assist airports that will lose their commercial air service to remake themselves.
4) #mesa has been a good communicator that more simulator time could be used to satisfy training hours against the 1500-hour requirement. So true. ALPA would have us believe that pulling a banner along a beach asking Lolita to marry someone results in higher quality hours than simulator training emulating flying in Northeast US airspace.
5) #RobertSilk writing on the topic in Travel Weekly quoted #raa on the Thought Paper we just released. RAA says it "ignores the fundamental fact that connectivity is really important to small communities." The paper ignores very little - and definitely not that - because finite resources are being spent to buy regional service that connects to nothing. The paper does ignore any thought that a system designed 15 years before the interstate system will thrive in perpetuity. The suggestion to train pilots rather than consolidate airports? - what airplane will they be flying that matches supply with inadequate demand?
So much fodder here. ALPA needs to come out from behind its cloak of safety secrecy and help find solutions or airlines they represent larger than regional carriers will not have enough pilots either. And the 535 legislators on Capitol Hill need to be told the truth by all stakeholders.
#swelbar