puff you make a good point although I dont agree with the last sentence. I was a regional guy in the past and I understand that "we" dont have the same outlook on life as you do. Unfortunately saying I have my piece of the pie i.e. paycheck, is what put the industry in the toilet. The collective petty thinking that we as pilots have has destroyed any future in the career. I suspect there is more pain to come regardless of what anyone thinks about the mergers. With the world market shrinking to meet the demand of today DAL has to adjust its plan. Its not just DAL I am sure bad things are on the horizon for CAL, USAir, United, and all of the LCC even SW. I am not the smartest guy in the building but if I was to bet I would say expect alot more furloughs in the fall from everywhere including the RJ world. I suspect everyone (management) is going to be working on the synergy of a smaller well whipsawed airline. This is not just airline world, I think my job in the military is going to be outsourced to UAVs soon.
we as pilots and professionals need to do all we can and get some sort of backup for ourself and our families. At the end of the day whether DAL or CAL cut pilot force or not they still keep the same amount of greedy manager types. It takes the same amount of execs to run a much smaller lower paid work force as it does highly paid over confident work force. If we are all educated in something else besides being an aviator maybe just maybe we have the bargainning power to attract professionals to the industry that are not willing to take bad contracts. Puff keep in mind todays an FO at Comair is going to be your FO at DAL. Teach everyone anything that you learned from your mistakes in the past and we might be able to prevent acidents like the recent one.
PS sorry if i made some sp errors my spell check is INOP