Speaking of 15-20 years ago and making a mess, I once heard that Pratt & Whitney turned down competing for the engines for the ERJ-145. They said it wouldn't last.

fwiw, 1100+ of them were made so at the least that's 1100 x 2 not counting replacement engines over the last 12 or so years.

The engine they chose, the AE3007, is the same core engine for the Osprey and C130J, pointless factoid.

A lot of people I'm sure never thought the RJ world would grow so large, maybe nobody. 9/11 didn't help when the name of the game was frequency of flights because thats what the customers wanted. Add in the "we don't fly F.L.A.Ps" and "those things suck, nobody will want them" and so forth and you get an enormous fleet of regional jets with everyone pointing fingers going "what the hell happened to the industry?!?"

Meanwhile, Southwest, 0 RJs. AirTran, 0 RJs after dabbling in it for a short period. Not saying there isn't a place for feeder service, but it sure would be nice if it was in-house and under control. I know we're beating a dead horse though but its resurrected often because of the silence at ALPA and the fears of what ALPA may push for in their lobbying efforts- despite what the pilot group and evidently many within ALPA want.

Negotiating Scope

Best of luck to UCAL on scope, right now we're all counting on you.