Of course he wouldn't pull his apps. He would attrit at probably the same time. The goal isn't to get everyone to become regional lifers. The real issue is getting people in at the bottom so that when he moves on there is someone to replace him. Getting people to financially commit to flight training again. When they see the current regional pay/QOL as it exists now, far fewer people are willing to get into it.

We need quality, affordable experienced based flight training, another stronger GA Revitalization Act with industry specific tort reform and some financial reforms at the college level (or abandon it altogether if they can't figure out how to more affordably give you a reading list of free material and then test you on it) and higher pay/QOL at the regional level. If they did even some of that (as long as pay went up enough) people would start getting back into it.