I suspect that XJet is looking for more codeshare work...they may be using the branded flying to help pay the mortgage on the airplanes until they can find better paying work.

If the branded stuff ends up working out, then great.

Howver one HUGE problem with regionals conducting branded flying (in addition to code-share) is that if you are successful, you will eventually end up competing with your code-share customers About .0003 milliseconds after that happens you will be fired. That's one reason you don't see that outside of very narrow markets (ie Go! in HI).