flysooner does have a point. Remember, the threat from Delta was that the entire 9E operation would winddown with one year, and that they have other carriers selected for that flying. There are two things wrong with this. One, you cannot take nearly 200 airplanes out of the DCI system in one year or less. Their threat would be more credible if they gave a longer time specification. But one year is unrealistic, and looking at past history with Comair, a slow dismantling is what would need to happen to remove a huge airplane fleet. And two, where do they think they would get 2,700 pilots in one year to replace these jets at the new company? Maybe 500-700 junior guys will follow the planes, but I have a had time believing RJ Captains will follow the planes to be back on reserve as FO at the new company. Simply put, with the ATP rule going into affect 3 months, there just wouldn't be enough people coming through the pipelines to staff over 180 airplanes in that timeframe. Therefore, it was a bluff. Realistically speaking they could not have done what they were claiming to do in that timeframe.