Guys I hate to rain on the warm fuzzies but regional flying is growing not shrinking! The only thing that is shrinking is the number of pilots and aircraft.

Take DCI, yes they are shrinking the fleet of regional aircraft but there is an increase in total regional lift seats. That equals growth! Delta sells seats not airplanes so....

There is a nice write up on it over at JC in the airline section.

I guess I should also say that once you take into account the 717 seats at mainline the regionals are not really "growing" but they are not shrinking by any means.