As usual the truth lies somewhere in the middle. According to a variety of sources, including a friend who was just in a meeting with our Manager of Planning, United wants the rate of J41 retirement accellerated so all are gone around Nov 03. this means ACA would not need to train anymore new hires into the J41 if thy freeze all the current people into the plane and relaease them as the planes leave the fleet.
More importantly, because of the new agreement the UAL pilots signed yesterday the United Express system is capped at 236 RJ's and will reach that level by April 2004. That means ALL UAX carriers are still going to get their CRJs.
Now for the bad news, apparently UAL wants to Freeze the size of th RJ fleet till the end of the 2002 as a cost cutting measure. This would appear to affect SkyWest and Air Wis as well. Therefore, all deliveries scheduled for the end of Nov and all of Dec must be deferred, parked or as Skywest and Air Wis may have the option, repainted as DCI or Air Tran. And, as a result of this delay, ACA will not need as many new hire classes until we start taking planes again. I also imagine that because of the quicker J41 retirements, a lot of people will transition to the CRJ FO slot sooner, filling up what would have been new hire classes.
One other note. It has also been noted several times that ACA already has an almost full pilot complement for the current growth plans. I think hiring could come to a screeching halt at ACA real soon.