In May 2005 Delta penned a deal to award Comair 34 aircraft. At the time, Freedom was not part of DCI.

Two months later Delta signed a deal with Freedom to fly the same number of aircraft.

Two months later Delta (and Comair) entered bankruptcy. Delta told Comair the deal was off because they couldn't afford to be purchasing any new aircraft in bankruptcy.

Delta proceeds to buy jets anyway and lease them to Freedom for a dollar a month. I guess the Comair folks couldn't come up with the buck?

So Freedom gets 30+ aircraft and Comair furloughs pilots.

Furthermore, in 2006 Delta goes to bankruptcy court and waves around Mesa's pilot contract (and others) and says if you make the Comair pilot contract crappy like this one, Delta can let Comair grow again. The judge believes them, throws out the pilot contract, and Delta rewards Comair by shrinking them an additional 38% in the next two years.

Those 34 aircraft meant 374 pilots and roughly 289 FAs.

If I had to guess, that's what he meant by Freedom costing Comair 500 jobs.

Don't take it personally; by Freedom he may mean JO, not the pilots.

And yes, Delta stinks too.

Aloha only had 13 aircraft flying inter-island.

Are you saying that 4 aircraft can't pull enough passengers from 13 aircraft to put a dent in Aloha's razor-thin profit margins?

Those 4 50-seaters represented 12% of Aloha's CASM. I'm sure Aloha wasn't making a 12% profit to cover the potential loss. At a more reasonable 2-3% profit margin, the 12% loss would have crushed Aloha.

Of course you'll have to search JO's laptop to find the real numbers.

Mesa's Fleet Size did not grow by 34 Aircraft (mesa's erjs were switched from usairways express to start the delta connection)..

Those 30 something airframes were Atlantic Coast DoJets...

What about the revenue that Aloha was bringing in off their mainland flying (with the -700s), as well as the cargo ops?

Not enough to stay afloat, history shows.

Somehow JO was able to "predict" that 4 CRJs would put a damper on Aloha's chances.

And if a little bird (and by "little" I mean "laptop" and by "bird" I mean "filled with porn") told JO that 9 CRJs would be needed, I'm sure go! would have gotten 9 CRJs.

Sounds like a failed business model to me. Margins too small.