Originally Posted by chuck416

ACL65,
I have agreed with practically every post I've ever read that had your name on it...however...this is the one notable exception. I don't presume to know what the answer is, but anybody who has been in this business more than a few years KNOWS that mainline flying has been continuously eroded, year-over-year, since at least 1990. The very first exception in my memory for ANY regional/commuter airline was with A/A, that allowed for a limited number of 19 seat aircraft to "probe the market" in BNA. Next thing you know, they buy up the carrier Simmons Airlines in ORD, where they operate 36 seat Shorts, and 46 seat ATR-42s. Then it was an exception to operate the ATR-72, then along comes the jungle jet, and Canidaire regional, and now we have the 90 seaters. I reiterate, I do not know what the answer is, but it really torques me when I see significant city pairs completely, (yes, completely) handed over to ASA, Comair, etc, etc, etc. If they wanna' fly MEM-TUP, or MSP-LSE, or DFW-GSP, that's one thing. To fly DTW to Monterrey, Mexico (yes, that's our "code-share regional partner" that does/used to fly that route) that is not "regional airline flying". Our two airlines used to have a combined list of somewhere around 13,000-14,000 pilots. I know factually that the north side at one time had 5,600, you south guys can fill in the rest. I'm not advocating "try something, even if it's right" approach. But we're all aware that ALPA's approach has been an unmitigated catastrophe. Ideas? Anyone?

Chuck