I just realized some might take offence to the third tier airline in my original post. I do not mean third tier as in even crappier then other regional's. I meant as another level of flying for the major carrier. This "tier" does not fly as a connection/express carrier. Great lakes for example flies into MSP and brings them to a terminal that you almost guarantee that they will jump on a Delta plane. These were all routes that XJ used to fly and delta pulled out so they could be an all jet fleet. It just seems like this is a way around it. I wonder if Great lakes shares any rev with Delta on these routes?