My thoughts on all this, having been with COEX for almost 8 years........
Not sure why everyone is throwing a party like we just rang in the new year or something. Today's announcement was pretty much a given, I thought we all knew that. I suppose that junior pilots who were concerned about their jobs, and junior captains concerned about losing their seats are certainly breathing a little easier. Certainly the timing of the announcement was a surprise, does that mean they've got some solid stuff lined up, I don't know. I for one am not ready to proclaim JR the allmighty savior just yet. I'm a realist and I've seen good things come apart at the hubs, like a set of left mains this week in Houston, with little or no warning. I for one will not be happy at all if we "take over" another carrier's flying, what the XJ guys are going through is pure hell. Pinnacle folks have been without a new contract for how long now? I don't want their flying at any cost. From what I gather we'll see a mix of charter with a very small number of those aircraft(10 or less), point to point flying with XR's(lots of gates available in MCI) and MAYBE just MAYBE some aircraft used to fly for another mainline carrier. Who knows, maybe some will end up in Europe, but that is bad news as none of us will be flying them. The point to point flying thing sounds fun but in all reality, will it work? Can you really honestly make money, in today's cut-throat low fares market, with a 50 seat regional jet?? Didn't work too well for Independence. Maybe it will work better for us. I don't know. Who knows, maybe we'll try what Air Whisky did and use some of our cash reserves to "infuse" some life into another struggling Legacy, cough....Delta....cough. But that means someone else probably gets the shaft. I wouldn't be proud of that.
The only real winner in all this is our master, our landlord, our pimp daddy, Continental Airlines. They're laughing all the way to the bank and beyond.
Just my guarded thoughts.