Someone above said that all regional pilots owed there jobs to lost mainline jobs. I am not so that is entirely true. I first flew for AE in 1992... there were FIVE AE companies at the time... with well over 2000 pilots between them.. hell we had 1000 at "Flagship Airlines ala Nashville Eagle".... and there are what 2700 AE pilots today..... I bet the difference could be measured in hundreds not thousands as the difference in AE numbers then and now. WHAT is different is what they fly..... out of RDU the Saabs, Shorts, and J31's flew to all the little towns of NC, VA, SC .....now those pilots are flying longer routes in jets instead of those TPs....... AA/AE maybe the exception rather than the rule... It would be interesting to see if the numbers were available how many pilots flew for each legacy carrier back then and how many pilots flew for feeder carriers support that carrier back then ... and contrast that with the numbers of today.....