Originally Posted by
404yxl
You nailed it with the last part. The RAH pilots may not accept that reality, but if RAH continues to have staffing issues, Delta will cancel their CPA, with cause, and the RAH can try and place them elsewhere, but that really won't work too well with their staffing issues that led to the cancellation in the first place. As for placing them with AA, the winds are already turning back to Envoy as the only regional that will be able to staff the Eagle flying for AA on a consistent basis. RAH has been cancelling Q400 and 50 seat lift just to keep up their staffing on 76 seat flying.
I wager Delta only keeps RAH around until it can replace that flying with mainline pilots.
I've said it a couple times over on the regional forum, the mainline partners are the ones in the driver seat and really "own" the aircraft.
Back in the 1990's, Delta owned both Com Air and ASA, and bought them about 600RJ's to fly as Delta parked mainline DC9's and furloughed pilots., while Com Air and ASA hired pilots.
A big chunk of the debt Delta is still paying off today was accumulated buying all those RJ's that are being parked today.