welcome to the new majors. it's stagnation everywhere. want movement? look at mesa - lot's of movement but not very pretty. someone has to make up the poorer half of the list. the obvious question: how long does it take to get half way with attrition as the only (no growth) factor? Most regionals are not expanding and many will be shrinking making that target of "half-way" even more elusive. AA will be hiring in our lifetime but AE is not the place to be if that is your goal. Why train twice when you can rob someone else for less??
The days of quick upgrades are gone, welcome to aviation where 1/3 of capacity has been shucked since 9/11 and most feel there is more to come. You may ask, why did the regionals experience growth in this period? Easy enough to answer, down guaging across the board. Now the number of airframes 50 seats and below no longer fit the economic environment and the move to larger equipment but not at "major" cost is the name of the game. Still a shakeout coming regarding that issue.
For AE the only question is: will AA retool AE with larger equipment (assuming APA scope relief) or does it contract it out? My money is on the latter. It is too expensive to retool when there are others that will do it and take the risk for you. The others will take the risk of aircraft obsolescence and like it w/o putting amr's balance sheet at risk. All the cheerleaders hoping for scope relief at AA need to wake up and smell the coffee. One list with all the flying is one thing but scope relief per se the way amr wants it is devastating for AE.