Originally Posted by pitchattitude

A shrinking airline is never a good thing. AA may want to operate the planes, but a smaller airline means less significance. Fewer aircraft means fewer flights and hours and crappier flight files. Schedules will NOT get better. The more puzzle pieces (planes, pilots, hours and destinations) means more ways to put them together which helps optimize things. So less of all those things means things gets worse. You may think that the 175 will maintain its status quo, but I can assure you that those 145 pieces still help the overall picture. As I stated earlier, there are only three 175s on order and few if any more 170s to be had. AAG would much rather give the flying to the likes of SKW and RPA that have money to buy their own aircraft.

If you already have the time for upgrade, then you will be going to ORD as a 145 captain. 145 in ORD will be the most junior captain until those planes go away completely. While the CRJ was still in play and dying a very slow and painful death, it was the bane of those stuck on it.

If you really want to avoid that, you better be prepared to sit out as long as it takes for the last 145 to go away from Envoy and that will indeed leave this place worse off than it is.