I can vouch that MAA is/was a better operation that Republic.
I was a supervisor in Key West.
We picked up MDA on 9 November to much fanfare at the airport, being the ONLY airline that can take every passenger AND their bags. We were thrilled. Our passengers even noticed the difference in professionalism between our friends at PSA and MAA, and this from their mouths not mine.
In the 4 or so months we had MDA, we only had a few days of cancellations, and they were about once a month, if even that.
A few weeks before I left Key West, we had an entire weekend of cancelled and delayed flights, mix of maintenance and other issues. Again, MAA and PSA never had these problems - back to back - like Republic did/had/has. DCA maintenance was told to look over the DCA-MCO plane with a fine comb to make sure it can operate all day. Republic, on the other hand, gives the route whatever plane it can. And it constantly would be delayed or break down.
In this one weekend, of the 9 flights we were supposed to run, only 6 operated, and only ONE was on time. The rest had anywhere from a 30 min delay (due to us and FLL turning that sucker in 20 mins) or 2 hours.
PSA came to the rescue and even sent us a CRJ on Saturday and again on Monday to clean up the mess, including the inaugural EYW-CLT nonstop at 1230AM that Sunday, with 28 passengers on board! (restriction was 32/40). One day on a cancellation, we didn't even have TAXIS to get people off of our Island. No hotels either, and no other seats on Other airlines. It was so bad I had an employee just walk off the job.
Again, I've never had that with MidATlantic.
Another instance, the plane had a slide issue in EYW (wasn't blown, but close). Our air bottle isn't working (that thing has been up and down since we got it) and they had a spare plane and crew in DCA but the APU wasn't working. We asked them to NOT send it and cancel everything (this was at 4pm). The manager even asked them to cancel it. Well, somehow they said they would send the plane down, keep the #2 engine running on the ramp, and a mechanic will try to get the APU to start. right.
Well, plane came in from DCA, got in at 7pmish, and we got the mechanic on board. After 25 mins of the engine running, find out we can't get the APU to start. Passengers in gate area watching all this, btw. I then discuss a single engine turn, as its in the Mainline RON (tried not to say "well, MDA can do it")... captain was NOT comfortable with it, including boarding the pax with #2 running, shut door, start #1, shut down 2 so we can load bags, and send it off. I got so despirate for our customers that I begged the captain to please let us throw the passengers on board, they can deal with bags later.
15 minutes after this conversation, the planes door closed and taxied off. I had 2 chairmans, 4 golds, and 3 silvers in the gate area watching their plane take off. Lets not forget I had 30 other passengers.
Republic also told us they were going to cancel a flight one day due to maintenance, so I instructed my agents to dump everyone. The flt was on a maintenance delay out of FLL on the last flight, and a 1/2 an hour delay means NO ONE makes the 7pm FLL connections. I then got a call from Repub dispatch asking me why i'm getting rid of everyone, told them what they told me, and now they are running the flight to Key West (only 2hours late), even though no one will make their connections and our policy states we are NOT to send people on a misconnection and put up in a hotel. I had no choice. We had to then REBOOK all 76 passengers (well, 72, some no showed) and put them at the Palm Beach Marriott for $300 a night. What makes me even more upset is that Republic didn't cancel 3349 -- the 420pm flight -- they ran it, with NO ONE on board as FLL dumped everyone on Continental. So republic got their profit & completion on this one.... and only screwed a couple hundred of OUR customers, not their customers.
So please, do not let facts get in anyone's way here. MDA was NEVER this bad... MDA worked with us and got us a plane or helped us find one. Republic will tell us "oh, we won't pay for PSA to send a plane down" which is basicly telling my employees and my customers we are [deleted]. (PSA is the only other jet operator that can operate into EYW, Air Wisky doesn't have it in their plates or op specs). CHQ did finally send down a trainer to train us all on the ERJs, only to find out when we were cancelled that CHQ does have a spare ERJ in FLL, but its in DL colors and we can't have it. This time only 64 passengers got screwed.
On my second to last day of work, we had an IOE. Oh dear god. This guy could barely speak english. The guy even opened the door before we got the air stairs pulled up. I heard his Check FA going over everything with him... what is scary is that this would have been the 4th leg of his IOE. My friends who are Checks for other airlines are told not to say ANYTHING at all. This lady was going over the manuals with him, announcements, etc. I've been told that Republic has been rushing everyone thru training that they've gone as far as to fudge tests just to get the crews online.
to this day, I have more and more respect for the wholly owned carriers as they have a clue about how its done -- its our money, its our employees, its OUR product. I don't get that from republic.
