In terms of majors hiring...when I got hired on at CAL in '06 there were folks getting hired from the original Freedom Air (alter-ego of Mesa), and GoJets. Of course we had scabs in management so maybe they liked that sort of thing, dunno. What I do know is that UAL and UALALPA are working together as we have to hire 1300+ in the next 18 months (I've moved up 200+ numbers in the last 3 months). Though there were political motivations on Heppner's part, like gaining the regional MEC's vote for ALPA President, I suspect the practice will continue to help our ALPA brothers & sisters at the regional level. Fact of the matter is that the pool will dry up quickly, and management will have to add more mainline aircraft to comply with scope, which means even more hiring. DAL's ETD (or whatever it's called) with 9E is just the start, IMHO.