United announced the first 30 EJets going to Mesa the morning after a very large new hire class all showed up for their first day. At the time, UAL was cancelling flights left and right at Republic b/c of staffing, particularly on the Q400.

In this environment, regionals who are filling classes--and regionals who can say "hey look we have +40 pilots on our list and +30 pilots on reserve in this base, with 200 guys in the pipeline"--those regionals get the new planes.

The legacies aren't concerned with staffing their own operation, however when it comes to regional feed, I am firmly convinced that having fully-subscribed new hire classes and even surplus pilots on the books are massive advantages for a regional to secure new flying.

Hate on JO all you want, but the man is insanely smart when it comes to business--he's pitching the fact that our classes are full to our mainline partners, and playing on their fears of understaffed regionals causing network disruptions, and it's working out well for him (if not our payrates).