They have to flow a certain amount of wholey owned regional pilots every month they hire pilots per their contracts with those groups. Regionals are having staffing issues, including the WO regionals. Take a month off of hiring and no contractual obligation to flow pilots from the WO that month, relieving staffing issues there. Increase class sizes in other months and AA still hires the same number of total pilots, the difference being fewer of them have to come from their WO regionals. AAG has done this in the past and I’ve always considered this practice a bit of dirty trick that doesn’t live to the spirit of their contractual obligations. But those groups are so highly paid right now ($214/hr base plus some other incintivised pay plus some bonuses), I bet some (not all of course), are not too disappointed this time. In essence, one can enjoy getting screwed.