Man, the Regional section used to be one of the most active sections of this forum...
Still, what is happening to RAH is something that was proven by Midway after a fuel price increase eighteen years ago. RJ's, especially 50 seat RJ's, are not economical to operate! And as Corpex proved in 2007 after several years of frozen pay, decreasing benefits, increasingly hostile management and decreasing reliability due to inadequate parts supplies, no Virginia, there is indeed no extant, viable 19 seat niche market...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikebo...job-and-more-changes-are-coming/#366065025b82
Load factors and airspace congestion are both up. What is needed is more 737's operated by Mainlines at a lower frequency and kicking the over priced and inefficient sub-contractors to the curb.
Karma may be a bitch but that goes for all walks of life. Evolution is even more brutal and in this case the industry needs to evolve past outfits like RAH and run the routes on their own with their own equipment. Airtran figured out in about 6 months that it was less expensive to open a new market themselves that to pay Air Whisky to do it...