I know i wasn't a business major, so anyone care to explain why you'd start a new company (that you're going to own) and have them fly around in airplanes (that you'll own/lease) instead of simply buying the E-175 and letting the mainline guys fly it for a newly established rate? Give some FO's there a shot at upgrading, and create more jobs for guys coming in? just seems like a waste.

The allmighty dollar my friend....nothing to do with efficiency or creating jobs for anyone. It's cheaper (supposedly) for us and Compass to do the flying that an NWA baby bus (319).

The mainline guys had the option to take the E-175's but they were too good to fly little RJ's

WEll i dont work for compass but NWA is showing flight 2001 from mem to san operated by CP starting in may

Unfortunately that's pretty much the problem... there's simply no way the company (NW, or anyone else for that matter) would pay mainline pay for 76 seat E175's. CP is there because it gives furloughees (sp?) a place to go, and it's cheaper. I could almost see NW using the E-195 as a DC-9 replacement; all hiring/training cost would be covered by CP on the 175, and when a pilot was ready to flow up he'd simply move over to NW on the 195, almost no additional training or other resources needed. Then again that *almost* makes sense, so thusly it will never happen.

Where did you hear that?

The company (NWA) wanted to keep it seperate. They did not want to allow the 175s on the property at a different pay rate and work rules because of what they called "mainline creep". This means that in the next contract, the 175s would have been brought up to standard mainline levels (something the company wished to avoid).