I don't think they'd necessarily have to be "merged". Offer flow-up for the younger guys and let the older guys stay with whatever wholly-owned is left if they want to. Merging any regional into mainline would be a non-starter, especially given the fact that none of those guys have spent a day at the mainline.

But the discussion was interesting. I think the company would actually be better off putting the larger RJs at the mainline and boosting Group I pay to where it wouldn't be painful to fly them for a few years.

In any case, I do think that Kirby understands that simply increasing the scope is just kicking the can down the road a little further. At some point they will have trouble hiring at the regional level with all of the larger airlines drawing in pilots by the thousands each year. Delta is planning on hiring over 100 a month in 2015. UAL will probably be close to that and whenever we fix our pipeline issue AA will probably hire several hundred...and the retirements haven't even begun to peak yet.

I don't think it's going to simply be so dire that PSA/Envoy/PDT simply park airplanes, but they are already having some issue filling seats now, it's only going to get worse. That's really the angle that APA needs to take with this. At the very least, the 175s need to be folded into the mainline, and maybe even the -900s. All at Group I pay.