Pinnacle and Comair also have a lot of CRJ200s. More likely scenario, for those of you worried about your jobs is that regionals will have a reconsolication to fewer regionals left standing and almost all of you if not all of you will be absorbed into one or the other and I do not foresee any regional pilots currently flying for large E 145 or CRJ200 fleet regional getting furloughed. As an example, Comair will most likely be sold to another regional like Skywest or XJT. Compass will most likely be sold to a regional that wants a ready made inventory of E175 trained pilots, could be Pinnacle, XJT or maybe even another major who wants a wholly owned regional.

The reason for this is because majors are now all focusing on their growth in the international sector which really is the money maker and will see the biggest growth in the next 5 years. Meanwhile, more and more of their domestic flights are being subcontracted out to regionals, using 76 seat RJs. As an example, at XJ, 3 to 4 new domestic destinations are being added every month. ie. Starting April, XJ will fly CRJ9 to ATL, PVD, MEM, YWG (Winnepeg, Canada). I am not saying this is a good thing in the long run, but in the short run, all of you currently flying E145s, CRJ200s, Saabs. Q400s will have your jobs. In fact XJ is planning to hire another 300 or more pilots in 2008. I am sure this will also be the case with other large regionals once the dust settles with this merger mania.