If that was true they wouldn’t be pulling routes and replacing other routes or better known as “slots” with RJ’s to begin with. I don’t want to work for a company that operates empty A320’s to replace those RJ routes. That’s because I care for my own job security. If they could replace 5 flights a day with mainline metal from an airport they use two of those slots a day for regional metal, they would have done it already. The only choice would be to give up the slots, and that’s not good for business either, for multiple reasons not just one. Maybe in the end that’s what they end up doing.

I think the idea of taking 175’s and turning them into 90 seaters allowing for some type of B scale could work. You could also replace most of the CRJ routes with the E2’s. Obviously for that to happen it would require buying a regional that actually has assets and bringing it “in house”, removing scope from the conversation. You could sell that move to your shareholders probably, but the problem would be the union. As others have said though, it’s tough to sell the idea of buying out a low cost labor group straight up with assets you already own. That idea of bringing your own WO regional “in house” has never made sense to me, but buying a regional airline with actual assets could work.

The 4 airlines that rely on the regionals for their hub and spoke model could try to go “hybrid” utilizing both the hub and spoke model and spoke to spoke to mitigate the shortage of pilots at the regionals and save some slots in the process, but everyday the regionals are closer to a total collapse and it will never get better for them, only worse. So the “hybrid” model would only work for so long.