I don't know if this has been said yet, so I apologize if I'm bludgeoning a dead horse, but one other important factor to keep in mind is that these regionals (with one notable exception) are making money hand over fist. While it might be true that you can operate a E175 for less than a DC9, you must also consider that a portion of what you are paying for that E175 is coming directly out of your potential profits and going to the profits of another airline. Perhaps Northwest's/Delta's losses wouldn't be so astounding if they weren't paying for the profits of Pinnacle, Compass, Mesaba, ComAir, Mesa (well...), Republic, ExpressJet (at a time), ASA, and SkyWest. Sure, $10m a piece may not seem like much, but $90m a year plus the savings of having everything done in house (not paying for 9 different management/dispatch/scheduling/accounting/legal/other teams), surely is enough to make a meaningful difference on their balance sheets.

Bucking Bar said he doesn't want to run an airline, and neither do any of us, that's why we became pilots. However, if management incompetence is directly effecting our livelihood, QOL, job security, and the future prospects for our profession, then it becomes our responsibility to show management exactly WHY it is important to reign in all these regional/code share operations.

Any failure on managements part to recognize this can be attributed just as much to our negotiations failures as it can be to management ineptitude.