Given the pain at this caused many mainline pilots, there is an understandable lack of nuance on this topic. A couple things to keep in mind were that the precedent was already set to farm-out flying on smaller airplanes to subcontractors. When faced with the choice between bringing a CRJ on with mainline at potentially lower rates than were palatable for mainline pilots, but much higher rates than “commuter” pilots were going to receive, versus the promises that were made of increased widebody flying with the additional feed (if the jets went to the “commuters,” many mainline pilots didn’t really bat an eye at this seemingly insignificant change. The product was crummy, and the thought that airline managements would propose and passengers would agree (with their pocket books) to spend 2 1/2 hours on an airplane that was really no more comfortable than a 70s era turboprop, was a bit unfathomable.

The proverbial cat really got out of the bag when the next generation of these jets were being developed. It seemed harder to draw a line in the sand between a 70 seat regional jet, and a 50 seat regional jet as far as scope went, because it was the same type-rating and the costs of Having to develop these fleets at separate airlines, when it would make far more sense to keep them at the company that already had an established program, meant that more promises were made, and additional scope carveouts were put in place in an attempt to allow, but limit the growth of these larger regional jets.

Between the economic downturn and absolute beating, the industry, took post 9/11, a lot of pilots didn’t have the stomach/leverage (depending on we’re you were on your seniority list) to attempt to rectify the situation that was unraveling and threatening their livelihood and career progression.

Fast forward to today, and with the advent of the embraer E-jet, you essentially have a B scale that we tolerate, because it is theoretically only for a finite time. Think residency for doctors. The schedules are rough, the pay historically was much lower, and the overall quality of life for these pilots was simply worse than mainline. Things are changing pretty rapidly… Main line companies are attempting to squeeze much more work out of their pilot group, which is affecting our quality of life, and the pay at the regionals is skyrocketing in an unsustainable manner, due to the sheer lack of bodies available. It’s a game of musical chairs, and most of the regionals are just hoping to gain back leverage through their sheer (hopeful) existence in five years.

As for international scope and codeshare agreements, I’ll let someone else handle that.