Well, the whole US airline pilot industry is approaching a joke as it is, so you're not alone. Nothing is going to change at Eagle until you can negotiate a new contract. AE pilots are a prisoner of their current contract until well past the 2013 renewable date (counting the usual years of stalling by management).

If AE can find a buyer, and that is pretty questionable considering the 37-50 seat fleet that is economically obsolete, at least it might find an major airline to contract with who has weaker scope and it can get larger airplanes. However, as long as scope stands at AA, larger (hopefully meaning better paying) aircraft aren't in the cards if AE wants to contract to provide AA feed.

The dilemna is that while hoping for larger airplanes at AE (and indeed all the regionals), that just decreases hiring opportunities at the majors and keeps compensation down.

This is resulting in a situation where AE is becoming more and more irrelevant with the dying economics of the <70 seat market, is unsaleable due to the fleet makeup, and yet it can't expand to the more economical 70+ seat market due to scope. It's caught in the middle with no place to go.

The big question is will the current scope restriction stand at AA. A relaxing of scope is the only hope I see for AE to survive, and that is highly unlikely given the mood of the APA. I think AA's position probably is they'd like to get rid of AE and contract the feed to the lowest bidder, if they could get around the 70 seat restriction on contracted feed.

But then again, this is the airline biz and just when you think you have it figured out, you get hit upside the head with a baseball bat.