I think that the issue with State of Florida travel was the introduction of Myfloridamarketplace.com during Jeb Bush's reign. The former governor outsourced state procurement to a private consultant. In return, the consultant got to keep dollar amount equal to 1% of all state purchasing. The vendors were not allowed to raise prices to compensate for this. Airtran's contract, which was marginally profitable when they flew to TLH, suddenly became unprofitable and they left.

As far as the Dash-8's go, FL was founded on having a single aircraft type (717). The 717's went out of production and FL discovered that they needed an aircraft capable of reaching the west coast form ATL so they started purchasing 737's. Adding a third aircraft type would require a significant infrastructure investment. I think that FL would enter into another Air Wisconsin type arrangement before they invest in their own fleet of Dash-8's.