Originally Posted by
halls120
Turns out DL and UA are both "RJ airlines."
AA - 609 mainline, 244 American Eagle
DL - 714 mainline, 568 regionals
UA - 708 mainline, 552 regionals
Without even considering the US merger impact, expect the AA ratio to move closer to the DL/UA ratio. AA has wanted to increase its regional flying via both larger RJs and outsourcing to cheaper regional carriers for some time, but were limited by the AA and AE pilot contracts. Those limitations have been relaxed during bankruptcy and we have already seen AA pick up some Skywest CR2 flying (already started) and Republic E170 flying (starting this summer).
There's a financial reason UA and DL have so many regional planes, usually operated by outsourced carriers, and AA will follow suit. The best we can hope for on any of the majors when it comes to RJs is that have First/E+ and aren't CR2s.