Yeah really. I don't see what a one way, management negotiated flow up would do for the company. It wouldn't "supply pilots" any more than just hiring whatever number you wanted to from that airline would in the first place. So why even get your hands in it.

The only thing I could see is DL management wanting some source of quality control so they get their mits on the interview process. But again, big deal. DL still has an interview process. So what if someone passed a cog test 5 or 10 years ago? It doesn't save anything giving it to them now versus way back then, and now is a better indicator anyway.

If we get a massive one way flow through with ASA/ExpressJet, how does that help DL get more pilots when the time comes (if the time comes)? If anything that will just incentivise junior pilots waiting on the flow to try and "seniority jump" by going somewhere else before they could flow to DL, sometimes years sooner.

With no code share, and if/when DL was hiring, they could still go to any regional airline they wanted to and say "we'll take ___ number of pilots" and have the added flexibility of taking them in any order they wanted.

If the hope is we can get the "cream of the crop" by inticing them to hang around for the flow through, that makes no sense either. Unless you want DL over others and are willing to pass others up anyway, then even with the flow you can sit back and bank on that while shopping your other options that will get you to the kind of airline you want to be even faster than waiting to flow.

If this rumor is true, I doubt there's very much exclusivity in it. Remember, Compass also "did the DL interview" and yet that flow was cancelled. Other regionals in the past used the same cog and/or psych tests like Eagle and Comair. DL has proven it likes to hire tons of regional pilots from places that don't have a DL style interview, so DL just gives them a quick DL style interview.

Unless this rumored deal includes some sort of binding element on the pilot's end of the deal (which I very much doubt) I don't see it accomplishing much other than some middle level guy getting a bonus for "taking care of" the future hiring problem (scope notwithstanding).

I'm not against a flow or pref hiring in and of itself, but WRT the issue of getting the best pilots in a pilot's market in the future, we will need to be the best choice for pilots by being the best place to work. Our management will have to put our pilots first, pay us much better and chose us to do this company's flying. Without those improvements, we just look like "another major airline" to future DL pilot candidates. No flow will ever change that in the slightest.