Not sure I believe this at all. My last 4 late flights into EWR all had a TOTAL of 7 pax. Granted I'm on a 50 seater not 160, but they still pay for the plane whether it's full or not. If they were worried about light loads, they would leave these planes at the outstations instead of bringing them back to the hub empty, or almost empty.

mmmm, where do you work.

The problem with the thinking here is a regional is paid by how many people are on the aircraft. They are paid per departure. If that aircraft departures on its scheduled flight mainline pays the regional the same amount wether its full or has 1 person on it.

When mainline does the flight more thinking goes into it.

Hey guys,

I just searched "feeder" to find some info on this, sorry to revive an old thread...

Are there any regionals which actually have agreements with the majors? That is, do the owned subsidiaries regularly feed to the majors?

This seems to be the logical way for it to work but here in Oz, mainline tends to recruit from ANYWHERE BUT their wholly owned regional subsidiaries... I guess because recruiting from their own regionals will cost them training twice (once to train you on their heavier metal, and once to replace you in the regional).

I only ask because I'm planning on returning to the US in a year or so and assuming I'll be heading into a regional airline, what would be the best option for future plans into a mainline, or is it just a crapshoot?

Cheers,
BB

IMHO, just take a look around the regional forums and you'll see what you maybe getting yourself into. Just look around...