Originally Posted by
rickair7777
Regionals don't usually contract for spare aircraft. Normally the contract is for X amount of flying, and it is up to the regional to cover it. If they have good Mx, they can use fewer spares, or vice versa, but it is normally up to them.
Rick, unfortunately that's not how it is.
On a Fee-for-departure, the host carrier has to pay for *everything*.. including spares & downtime for maintenance. In the Mesa-USAir world, there should be 1 spare in PHX and 1 in CLT - what I can't tell you is if that includes 1 bird in MX at the same time or not.