UAL furloughees are well aware of the slight increase in express flying...but it did not come close to picking business up for the 45% cut in our 250 AC NB fleet. Our entire 737 fleet wiped out, so yes, I will split hairs as 27 UAL 500s would have saved about 350 UAL pilot jobs...splitting hairs may not matter that much if your getting the upper hand with the complany, but it does to us. The increase in express flying worked our well for Jeff as a stop gap to CAL's codeshare and saving the day NGs.
I don't call it "stealing flying"...I just call it screwjob business. Didn't work out well for my fellow 1400+ furloughees but glad not every company sacrifices their bottom fifth.