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US Regional Growth could hinge on Airline Negotiations
The current round of pilot negotiations at US major network airlines "will be the most important since deregulation" and could determine the future growth path for the regional airline segment, according to William Swelbar, a research engineer at MIT's International Center for Air Transportation.
Speaking yesterday at the FAA Forecast Conference in Washington, Swelbar said that if unions representing mainline pilots agree to relax restrictions on the size and number of aircraft that may be operated by regionals in codeshare with majors, the pilots will become "irrelevant in the US domestic market 25 years from now." Currently, scope clause agreements typically limit the size of regional jets that may be operated under codeshare to 76 seats or fewer. But if, as some suggest, mainline pilots agree to raise the limit to up to 125 seats, regional airlines simply will assume most domestic flying.
Regionals already operate 53% of all US domestic departures and are the majority service providers at many major airports, Regional Airline Assn. President Roger Cohen noted. For example, they operate 52.3% of departures at Chicago O'Hare, 56.4% of Houston Intercontinental departures and 52.1% of New York LaGuardia departures.
READ MORE: ATW News
