Once again, its not "the RJ flying" that's the issue. Its the insane 2018 Optimizer trying to fix the crazy one million BES dilutions along with an unrealistic obsession to lower hotel costs.

Now that the 88 is gone, everything but the 717 is pretty much a transcon capable plane which also means everything in between. Therefore even if we "took over" 100% of "regional" flying there's no excuse for 0-2% commutable trips or panicked plane changes/4 hour sits every single time just to save a couple minutes of credit for the EPS folks. Double "non-commutable" often circadian flipping barn burners. That Optimizer stuff isn't an inevitable consequence of "regional" flying; its mostly a consequence of the 2018 Optimizer. If short stage lengths always = horrendous QOL wrecking pairings, the Shuttle would have been just as bad because those are the shorter ends of the leg length spectrum anyway.

The company needs to be made to eat some credit if they want to base everything everywhere and spread everything too thin. They are free to simplify the NB fleets and use fewer bases if they want, but supposedly we make trillions per day in savvy profits by spreading everything so thin, so its OK if we add credit back in because its paid for by definition. And we're told the Optimizer, if it exists, only adds 1-2% of efficiencies, so that proves it can be totally and completely eliminated at very little cost.