Agreed. Everyone needs to understand that being a nice guy and being a top executive at any organization are completely separate and unrelated issues. Being a nice guy doesn't have any correlation on how the Board of Directors determine the best course of action to increase shareholder value.

The "airline within an airline" concept has been tried and failed many times (remember Ted/United, Song/Delta, etc) so if anyone bought us I can't see a reason for them to operate jetblue separately for any length of time. The only reason to do this would be to slowly siphon off our routes as the acquiring carrier gets new aircraft and hires replacements.

So to integrate? Or not (and siphon flying)?

Lets say AA buys jetblue. We have no contractual obligation to be integrated, so it is purely a financial decision. If jetblue is stapled and everyone is at year 1 pay then it would make sense to integrate. If Barger were to somehow demand we all got DOH for pay purposes then it wouldn't make any sense to put all jetblue pilots through AA indoc/training and pay them higher salaries since they could hire off the street and get a year 1 guy much cheaper.