Originally Posted by sailingfun

True but bring that to the mainline and all your costs not just pilots go up. I know the forum experts can cost this out in their heads and prove it's cheaper but airline managements world wide have also costed it out over and over and always come up with a different answer.
Regardless if you want to bring this flying to the mainline you don't merge those airlines. You sunset the contracts and transfer the aircraft. Much simpler and cheaper.