Senior captains at the regionals would fight that as hard as they possibly could. There would probably also be lawsuits involved. Can you imagine a bunch of 30 year RJ captains who live in base and fly nothing but high credit locals and CDOs being stapled to the bottom of a major list, going back to FO and being forced to commute to reserve in NYC?

There are quite a few people at most regionals who have no plans to leave the regionals and would pitch a fit over any kind of absorption that they wouldn't have the right to pass up.