I think the smallest seating capacity of the "Large SJ's" is the 70-seat PSA CRJ-700. To replace the seating capacity of 17 Large SJ's, you would need at least 24 additional 50-seat Medium SJ's. Airways Managment has stated several times that there are already too many 50 seat jets in the Express system.

PSA's CRJ's are essentially financed through the parent company, US Airways Group, so I don't see them adding 24 more CRJ-200's to their fleet, given the current financial state of the industry.

AWAC's entire fleet of 70 CRJ-200's is already dedicated to service as US Airways Express. Without buying more airplanes and amending the contract with Airways, they'll be stuck with those numbers for the forseeable future.

Given the previous statements by Airways, I would again be quite suprised if they chose to increase the size of the Medium SJ fleet with the likes of CHQ and others. As PDT reduces some of the DH8 fleet in the coming months, there will already be additional flying that the Medium SJ's will have to cover.

Airways has 25 aircraft scheduled for delivery this year, with 29 being returned to the lessors. If this grievance goes in favor of the mainline pilots, and 17 Large SJ's are pulled out of service, my bet is with deferring some of the mainline lease returns and covering the flying that way. Yes, this may not lead to recalls of the furloughed pilots, but other upcoming grievances dealing with utilization, block hours and minimum fleet count should help in those efforts.