For one of those few occasions, I agree with you. While I think the number of external contractors will decrease, the more wholly owned the better from management's perspective. They have found that shuffling airplanes around, while may make some short term expenses, will make long term savings and they can accomplish that via whipsaw. Not as easy to do with contract carriers.

Parker and co are on record for saying multiple times that they have too many regional carriers at the combined LAA/LUS (I believe 10-11) and they want that down to a smaller number. They see the future as a baseball "Farm" system where they hire people into a wholly owned for a few years then move them to the mainline. Again, can't do that with contract carriers but having only 1 wholly owned eliminates the ability to whipsaw.