Originally Posted by rickair7777

Three "conventional" jet regionals went away in 2020. If that hadn't happened something else would have had to give somewhere by now. The large regionals all have parked planes.

I think at this point the industry is trying, either consciously or by default, to band-aid the regional model for the next few years so there's something left to build on and return to bidness-as-usual after the big retirement wave is over.

If there were going to earth-shattering changes (regionals merged in house, or regional pilots granted mainline numbers) it probably would have happened by now. But they haven't done anything irreversible at this point.

Bonuses can stop on a dime, and the elevated contractual wages can be diluted over time by inflation and eventual competition between regionals as they resume the race to the bottom... they can always standup new startup regionals next decade. Today's "best regional" is next decade's liquidation fire sale.