I just have to go on a rant right now.

I've been thinking this since I got hired, but why does DL insist on having 20 different regionals all doing the same route throughout the day. Of course I know its to keep us regional pilots all to behave so as to not screw with their operation. I'm sitting here in MSP trying to go to DFW. It happens to be a Comair flight. We were suppose to leave at 7:15 am, but since someone messed up 3 of the crew members had to deadhead this morning from CVG pushing our departure to 9:00. Unfortunately this is a -700 and we're still missing the second FA. So now we have to wait until he/she deadheads on a later flight from CVG. We aren't suppose to leave untill 11:00 am now. All because there is this one Comair flight stuck in the middle of everything else. Looking at the schedules, it looks like the first flight MSP-DFW is Comair, followed by a Compass flight. Then a Mesaba. Then a DL mainline flight, then another Compass or something like that. How does DL think this is efficient?!?!? Just go on Travelnet, and type in any city pair and count how many airlines are on that leg. If this leg were only covered by one airline we wouldn't be sitting here still. If this were mainline, CZ or XJ they could have easily called in a reserve. I have a feeling this happens often all over the system. All it takes is one crewmember to get misplaced and since everyone works for different airlines you can't replace anyone easily.

I'll get off my soapbox, but I just wanted to rant about this.