a little extreme. They could say the same about AA taking Eagle jobs...
I'm sure you have moticed AMR shift routes back and forth between AA and AE several times over the years.... they do it to try and keep a route profitable. There is no way to run a Mad Dog 4-5 times a day from XNA to LGA for example... there just isn't the load factor to support it... there are enough pax to support a 37-50 seat RJ doign it though...

it keeps AMR in the market, denies full market share to the competitors, and often ends up opening new routes for AA once demand increases to support the larger plane. Reducing frequency to isn't the answer either since the competition will continue to run their 4-5 flight flights a day, and the pax will simply go with the more convienient schedule.

EGL could vanish tomorrow; all that would happen is AMR would subcontract out that flying to several commuter carriers. So, the real question is - since regionals are not going away - woudl you rather work with one wholly owned sister company against AMR; or would you rather work with several outside subcontractors like RAH? Remeber, RAH is the current AMR subcontractor that has made enough money flying for other airlines to go out andf BUY tweo large plane operators within a few months of eachother.... so that RAH is no longer just an outside subcontractor; they are now a direct competitor in several markets. They have also had trhe benefit of working closely enough with AMR to have inside knowledge of how things are done at AMR... and they now have the larger planes to use that information against AMR... while still bleeding a prifit from ARM by flying their subcontracted routes.

Yes my friends; be vary careful what you wish for.