And yet for regional pilots as a group it would be a great thing. A year ago, when Horizon was cutting back flying by 30% because of p/$$-poor management causing them to be short of pilots, the ability of Alaska to shift that flying to Skywest kept Alaska from having to either fix their Horizon management problems or bring the scope back to mainline.

Most of us believe that the system exploits all regional pilots who basically do the same job as the mainline pilots at a third (or less) of the salary. As one of the biggest and lowest paying of the regionals, those pilots working at Skywest tend to hold down pay and benefits for all of us by being willing to do that work for less. But it's more than that. The biggies (OK, Alaska is a relative biggie) can keep their own wholly owned pilots under contro just like Alaska did, by shifting their workload to Skywest to keep Horizon under control.

The whole regional codeshare system is a house of cards, but it is propped up by the ability of the mainline to play one regional against the other.