Originally Posted by hockeypilot44

Actually... the original plan was to have two certificates - Chautauqua and Republic. Bedford could not get the Republic certificate up fast enough so he put United 170's on the Chautauqua operating certificate violating APA's scope. They sued and won a few million per month. Chautauqua then bought Shuttle America (Wexford Holding's owned Shuttle and Chautauqua) for a quick fix to the 170 scope problem. As soon as Shuttle was bought, the 170's were transferred immediately from Chautauqua to Shuttle America. Then Bedford signed a deal with Delta to fly 170's on the Shuttle America certificate. Next Bedford made a deal to buy the Mid Atlantic 170's that were configured to 72 seats. Under Delta's scope these could not be under any operating certificate flying the Delta code so he finished creating the Republic certificate and put them there. This all happened in less than four years. It truly is one airline with one pilot group and one CEO using 4 different operating certificates for the sole purpose of scope dodging.