quite frankly I don’t care about the egos of guys we have not even hired yet. As it is right now DL flies jets, some big some small. If you can’t handle that don’t apply. If military applicants can’t handle the thought of flying an RJ (I honestly don’t think this will be a problem) there are 10,000+ current RJ pilots who would take that shot. Protecting our SCOPE is far more important than worrying if a new hire might have to spend a year or 2 flying a slightly smaller jet. If they get stuck on a smaller jet for longer than 2 years, then the only reason they had a job at DL in the first place is because of those jobs being moved. (assuming we could bring them on our certificate) By moving jets to mainline you are creating more stable jobs with more options. Recruiting pilots is delta’s problem. Making sure Delta pilots fly Delta passengers is our problem.

to your second point, probably a guaranteed interview (senior republic and Skywest pilots) or maybe a staple (the only regional this could work for is endeavor). When planes move from regional to regional the pilots rarely move with them. given our year 2 717B rate is higher than a maxed out -900 CA (endeavor and Skywest) and the sheer # of endeavor, republic, and skywest CAs that have applied here it’s kinda hard to argue career expectations at a regional should outweigh our pay scales.

not to mention AA flew E190s at payrates very similar to our CRJ rates up until this year, I don’t think they had a recruiting problem because of it.

this is all an exercise in futility given moving jets is currently not a proposal, but I will continue to strongly advocate for it.