Like Parker said about RAH, the money invested doesnt mean anything more then an investment much like they would have gotten from a bank. It was to secure financing and that's it. However contract carriers do have a certain percentage of flying they have to get.

However mark my word. This whole FFD stuff will come to an end and it will happen fast. The reductions are hitting the Wholly Owns right now hard, (PDT,PSA, Mesaba, Comair) because they dont have a set amount of flying guaranteed. However I think you will see many legacy carriers go away from contract carriers and only carry enough to prevent the whole comair issue from years ago to occure again.

I really do think they are seeing the huge waste of money they throw away with the FFD when it makes more sense to either reduce capacity and to it themselves and or let their wholly owns do the flying. I think you will see here in the future the contract mins lowered greatly in the future of all majors in order to cut cost and keep more control over how their flying goes.

Why is PDT losing planes right now? Its because they are up on leases and they flying cant be reduced at RAH, AWAC or Mesa right now. They are all down to the mins. If USairways could, I believe they would reduce all of the above down even more, they just cant legally. Thus PSA/PDT will take a brunt and have done so already.