Even if it looses money, if I were in charge of the universe I would fly MD-80s/737's on the route to establish brand presence and customer head counts then maybe move to RJ's in 12 months once the routes were established.

I would make a huge deal of the new routes in the local DFW and NYC area papers and community business events.

Day-1, I don't know if I would put a RJ on the "welcome to our new DFW-LGA route"

AA would routinely fly money-looser routes just to establish brand presence and kill weaker carriers. They did this with SWA back in the early days of SWA.

The tables are turned now.