Originally Posted by
rickair7777
That is an issue of course, and I don't think OO would go there unless the FFD biz was fundamentally altered coming out of covid. That might happen if things are bad enough to trigger all kinds of scope limits, but not quite bad enough to file BK and get mainline scope tossed out.
Note "competitors" above. OO would probably not be restricted from operating larger planes under it's own brand. But the reality is that even if that was technically allowed it might annoy the big boys, who probably don't want to subsidize a growing LCC competitor. So their contracts would probably stay intact, but probably not get renewed.
DL’s scope prohibits any airline that does FFD flying for DL from having any aircraft over 76 seats in operation. That is part of the reason why republic and shuttle America were two separate airlines, republic flew 80 seat 175s for US air and 99 seat 190s for someone (I can’t remember who) while shuttle flew for DAL.