Where did you hear that? Because yesterday I heard that too from an XJ CA. He did not tell me what his source was. Same CA told me he does not think it is even remotely likely that Mesaba will be sold to Pinnacle for various reasons, including the one mentioned above regarding the seniority list stapling. The other reason is NWA is not happy with 9E and is not about to hand over the gold mine to make 9E even a bigger headache. He also said the so called joint Mesaba 9E MEC meeting has nothing to do with 9E buying Mesaba, but it was about the future plans for Mesaba and 9E doing DAL routes after the NWA/DAL merger.

On one of my commutes I heard from a NWA CA that he thinks it is very likely that Mesaba will get the additional options for 18 CRJ9s in addition to the 36 CRJ9s as a temporary measure to fill in for DC9s until a 100 seat replacement is found.