While there’s nothing official as of now, something interesting could be brewing between Delta Air Lines and its wholly owned regional subsidiary, Endeavor Air.
Why regional airlines exist, and why they’re inefficient
All of the “big three” US carriers have regional subsidiaries — namely American Eagle, Delta Connection, and United Express. With this, we see separate airlines operating regional jets on behalf of the major airlines. Each of the “big three” carriers has multiple regional subsidiaries, given how many regional jets they operate. In some cases the carriers are wholly owned by the major airlines, while in other cases they aren’t.
Why don’t the major airlines operate their own regional jets, but instead contract that flying out to third parties? Well, it’s mostly about cost savings. By contracting this flying out to third parties, the pilots, flight attendants, and other workers at these airlines, don’t have the same pay scales as you’ll find at the legacy carriers. The cost savings for airlines have historically been significant.
There’s a tradeoff here, though. As you’d expect, the unions representing pilots at the major airlines don’t like jobs being outsourced to lower paid pilots. So their contracts contain scope clauses, limiting the number of regional jets that can fly, and also limiting how many seats these planes can have.
Quite a few regional jets in operation are configured with fewer seats than they would ideally have, specifically because of these scope clauses. Airlines want to be able to operate regional jets, but are often maxed out with regards to the scope clause, and the unions (understandably) aren’t willing to budge. For example, this is why United Express has CRJ-550s, which are essentially rebranded 70+ seat CRJ-700s configured with just 50 seats.
Delta & Endeavor pilots are in negotiations
There has been some discussion on airliners.net about whether Delta’s wholly owned regional airline, Endeavor, could be folded into Delta’s mainline operation. @xJonNYC shares a memo that adds some credibility to this.
Specifically, the unions representing pilots at both Delta and Endeavor have passed a joint resolution supporting bargaining goals. As this explains:
- Both unions passed a joint resolution supporting the establishment of a joint working group that would lead to all Delta passengers being flown by Delta pilots; this specifically suggests that regional jets would also be flown by Delta pilots
- The agreement clearly states that no Endeavor pilots would have higher seniority than any existing Delta pilots
Will Delta fold Endeavor into mainline operations?
All we know so far is what’s stated in the above memo, so perhaps we’re all just reading too much into this. However, we do know that the unions representing pilots at Delta and Endeavor are at least having discussions about possibly merging their pilot groups. While we haven’t heard anything from Delta management, I have to imagine that something prompted these discussions.
Does this mean that Delta could integrate Endeavor into its mainline operations? I actually could see quite a bit of merit to this:
- If there’s a US airline that would do this first, it would be Delta, given that the airline is generally most innovative in these kinds of ways
- Unlike some other regional airlines operating on behalf of Delta, Endeavor is a wholly owned subsidiary
- Wages at regional airlines have increased massively since the start of the pandemic, which minimizes the cost savings from outsourcing this flying to third parties
- In terms of staffing, the only hurdle Delta would have to overcome here is with pilots, given that flight attendants at Delta aren’t unionized, so the airline has a bit more leverage there
- Given the pilot shortage, Delta would be in a good position in terms of having so many more “mainline” pilots who could start on the regional jets, and then work their way up
- Integrating regional operations into the mainline fleet would allow the airline to be more efficient, as seats could be added to many regional jets that are currently restricted by the scope clause
- Delta has long had smaller aircraft in its mainline fleet than American and United, and has made the economics work; for example, Delta has Boeing 717s with just 110 seats in its mainline fleet
While I don’t think it’s a guarantee that this will happen, I do think it’s likely that these discussions are happening, and I could see this becoming a reality. I suppose it all comes down to what kind of an agreement Delta is able to make with its union representing pilots for what kind of pay these pilots would get. The truth is that at this point, the pay scales aren’t actually that far off.
Below is the pay scale for the new industry-leading contract that Delta pilots have ratified.
Meanwhile below is the current pay scale for Endeavor pilots.
Honestly, at this point the differences are minimal. The pandemic sure has changed a lot of things. Pre-pandemic it would have been inconceivable to think that a mainline carrier would swallow a regional carrier in this way. However, now it seems like this could make sense.
If Delta doesn’t actually plan to integrate Endeavor into its mainline fleet, what could another explanation be for these discussions? Since Endeavor is a wholly owned subsidiary, I suppose it’s also possible that the two companies are working out some sort of an agreement that would allow Endeavor pilots to advance to Delta after some amount of time, or something.
Bottom line
The unions representing Delta and Endeavor are in discussions about establishing a joint working group. It’s anyone’s guess what this will look like in practice, though it sure seems like we could see Delta’s wholly owned regional airline folded into the mainline fleet.
At this point cost savings are minimal from having a regional airline, given the huge pay bump regional jet pilots have received. Then when you consider the advantages of not having to deal with a scope clause, the benefits could outweigh the costs.
Honestly, this would have been totally unthinkable pre-pandemic, while at this point the math seems to almost make sense. I’m curious to see how this unfolds.
What do you think — could we see Endeavor folded into Delta?
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