Agreed, there is a lot I don't know. Are you suggesting that AMR purchase Reno Air in the late 1990s with the intention of keeping it on a separate operating certificate and transitioning mainline capacity to Reno Air? My understanding with GoJet is that it was a new carrier created as a UAX contractor to side step Trans States (union) and United Airlines (mainline) ALPA scope clause.
I'm obviously not fully informed and am perhaps inarticulate, but I was suggesting AA increase the use of partnerships (non-codeshares) while drawing down mainline capacity. It seems the only teeth the APA scope clause has is the requirement of APA approval for AA code sharing domestically? I know APFA supported the BA/IB ATI, however I remember the previous APA leadership spoke out against ATI as they felt it compromised their job security.
Perhaps if AA continues to gut its domestic network in places like Boston, Raleigh-Durham, San Francisco, San Juan, St. Louis, etc AA could continue phasing out MD-80s with fewer 738s to replace them (which is the case at the current replacement rate). It will be very interesting to see what happens with UA and CO since CO is strictly ExpressJet and Q400s at EWR while UAL has many, many regional jets of different sizes operating long routes. The longest Continental Express I know is IAH-YYZ which was awful.
Josh
