Posted this question in the latest and greatest, but nobody answered.

Pinnacle’s bankruptcy underlies growing weakness of US regional carriers | CAPA

why would Delta finance and extend the contract until 2022 for 142 CRJ200's at Pinnacle? My guess is so they can swap them out 2:1 to get the CRJ9's at pinnacle with a new cut rate crew cost. 142/2=71 so it makes sense to me. They're using this in my opinion to make it look like a scope win and this was their plan all along. These CRJ2's could have just gone away at this point.