History has also shown that oil prices were far lower. Todays prices are forcing a game plan change. Why artificially prop up a contract carrier with a cost plus agreement, paying for their fuel and insulating them from this volatile market... therefore ensuring profitability at said carrier? Why do that when they can grow the wholly owned, spread the costs out further and collect the profits if there happened to be some.

The ways of the past are gone. A year ago I would have believed Mesaba and Compass (and Comair, Eagle etc...) would have been quickly spun off to raise cash once the growth stopped. Just like Pinnacle and ASA were. Today, it's a different story and I think the mainlines will shift their focus towards wholly owned regional partners and limit their exposure to cost plus agreements where possible.

On the issue of consolidation however... at least with the new Delta I can see Comair and Mesaba merging, or at least Comair falling under the MCHoldings umbrella. If there are indeed furloughs at NWA and a near flush of the list over at Compass I could see NWA selling those 175s in an asset sale, like Mid Atlantic. This creates cash (or at least breaking even) as well as mitigating all the costs of retraining the "new" Compass seniority list. IF they don't furlough, Compass would plug away as status quo apart of McHoldings.