Twotbags
The only problem with your theory is that the aeroplanes were, for the most part, owned and the costs were already sunk. The crews were in place, the sim was in place, the engineers had sorted the airframe out and it was running reliably, the punters loved the aeroplane as did the majority of crews.
The only one that didn't like the ejet was one man in particular, for reasons best known to himself.
The capital cost of those aeroplanes, while more than a F100, was significantly less than a 737 and similarly it was cheaper to run, crews were cheaper, air nav charges were cheaper, it burnt less fuel than either a F100 or a 737, and giving them away just to not see them making the tarmac look untidy is a false economy in my opinion.
I dont understand the logic of contracting work out. The contracted party has to make a profit and at the end of the day the only major input cost differences are the manpower (which in my opinion is a marginal and temporary cost reduction) and airframe capital cost.
Fuel is much the same, air nav charges are much the same, maintenance is more often than not more expensive due to the older airframes, the other operator normally has to duplicate ops, crewing, nav/flight planning, load control, management and engineering functions and the other operator usually tries to do the job on a cost plus basis so there is no real incentive for them to do things as efficiently as possible.
To me, the smarter, though seemingly outdated, move is to do the work yourself, get the economies of scale associated with using your own infrastructure which is already in place and if needed making small, incremental, increases in manpower in the various areas. Morale of your troops is improved because they see the work staying in-house, the risk is better managed as you have control of the end to end process rather than plonking your brand on a machine operated by someone else who doesn't care as much about your brand as you do.
But what do i know
