I live in a spoke city on the MEM Saab service. We have not been an EAS city, but qualify if all airline service is withdrawn. In July, Delta/Mesaba announced plans to withdraw service, advising the community to apply for EAS. Delta/Mesaba then submitted a bid for $1 mil. annual subsidy for the service. Unexpectantly, Skywest submitted a bid for $570K, for a United feed to ORD, using CRJ-200's. Both bids involve 2 roundtrips daily. It looks like Delta overpriced the bid, knowing that another carrier would underbid, therefore relieving Delta of continuing service.

At any rate, most locals will support RJ service to ORD, rather than Saabs to MEM.

I would think if DL was seriously interested in continuing small city service, they would replace the MEM Saabs, with RJ's to ATL.