United is ripping seats out of its regional jets and it's a bad sign for pilots and passengers

Nice to see I'm not the only one irritated by the choice of words. This use is very common- must be some directive from an Editor to attract more attention.

There is no need to "rip out" the seats. Just give the technicians the appropriate socket and ratchet. They can unbolt the seats and remove them in a civilised manner.

The headline would be more appropriate for an article in The Daily Mail or The National Inquirer. United is not ripping out seats, they are removing 6 seats from their fleet of E175's per union contract.

This is a great deal for the customers, imagine having more leg room in an otherwise sardine packed style flying tube with wings attached to it !!! As far as the deal the company with the Union, too bad, that's what makes the difference from a good contract and a bad contract, for both sides

News media is clueless... this started with the CRJ700's with GoJet... Converted to 550... Giving more Leg Room and space... Suspected this would come to other planes as this caught on... Think it is a good move, even though this is a stupid title for an article.

The "SCOPE CLAUSE",as mentioned in this article,has been around for a long time..several years back the pilots union for american was goong to strike because they feared the airline was going to give routes and thus mor jobs,to regional carriers representing american eagle..it was worked out with the union and company employees and furloughs were no an issue..aa just changed routes and crew assignments to accommodate as did eagle,where the smaller markets had the regionals,and flight hoiurs for crews were readjusted..in actuality,seats were added on the regionals givng passengers less legroom,and adding more revenue.."ripping out" seats is a bit of an extreme representation..they are merely going back to the way it used to be..