Muppets - you're right on. It's incredible how disgruntled, negative and as you said, gloomy many of the FOs I fly with are! You guys think this is bad? Just ask anyone at XJ who was around between 2001-2007 THEY will tell you what bad is. Anyone hired at XJ in 2007-2008 doesn't realize how good they've got it.

Growth... it's a double edged sword. We all want to advance our careers, which will come with growth. It comes at a price, like less jobs at mainline. Fortunately for Mesaba all the new jobs created in this last hiring boom are in reality, backfill from the constant shrinkage XJ experienced between 2001 and 2006. I don't view our latest "growth" as a boon for us and negative for mainline. After all, we're just getting back to the size we once were. However if MAINLINE relaxes scope further and we end up growing at their expense, we teeter on the edge of that sword. In the end, we as pilots at the regional level can't do anything about what mainline does to their contract. It's out of our hands... we just fly what we're given.