It was a concession, but the GW limits did serve as somewhat of a backstop. Otherwise they'd be experimenting left and right with all first class configs in much larger planes just because they could.

Some scope clauses even have "below floor cargo capability" as a limiting factor. Certificated seats is an important metric, but if that's the only limit any company can just pay for paperwork to reduce the seat limits to what they want to install and get around it that way. That's why we need many restrictive ways to control it. C2012 had some scope concessions but one of the bright spots was including turboprops. We may never know if they would have gone down that road at some point at DCI, but they had the ability to have unlimited 70 seat props off list. Its still unlimtied 35 (or 37?) seat props, but that sucks a lot less and is less likely to happen.

I expect absolutely zero relief in C2015 for any DCI outsourcing. No added certificated seat limits, actual seat numbers, weights, additional airframes or anything else raised or waived to provide them relief in any form. And I expect some tangible level of DCI reduction with, at the very least, some form of sunsetting to reduce the number of seats and airframes at DCI without allowing anything larger there ever. And that includes the bogus seperate certificate tricks and code share tricks with mainline sized "RJ's" at DCI carriers that have hundreds of albatross jets on firm order with no one to fly them for. That's not our problem; let them eat CapEx and debt and bleed RASM all over the floor. Its not our place to enable the regional CEO megalomaniacs.