Other MRJ rumors
One of the rumors floating around SLC recently that most of us dismissed as complete horse-pucky until this announcement was that the long term strategic plan was for Inc. to eventually replace all our airframes with MRJs across both airlines saving tons of money on warehousing, mx, crew training, dispatcher training, etc. Also, supposedly there is some sort of handshake agreement for Mitsubishi to scale down the MRJ to a 50 seat configuration that with the GTF technology should allow it to be operated profitably on routes currently served unprofitably by the CRJ.
This was a laughable rumor until this came along, now I'm not too sure. Originally we had been hearing something like 700 new airframes across both airlines to replace everything, and we certainly aren't going to be getting 700 70/90 seat aircraft.
Flame on!