Do not underestimate the "power" of JA's convictions. I will wager that JA will chain the doors shut on Expressjet before he merges lists.
SKYW is in the codeshare partners view, currently Inc, employs 1/3 of the regional pilots and by default 1/3 of the entire regional airline sectors flying. Inc. is the singularly most important piece on the chess board. The airline that manages to control Inc., will control their competitions feed. Now that the major sector is done consolidating, the next phase is the regional sector. SKYW Inc.'s market cap is small enough to be interesting and is far too small to ignore in relationship to its consequences for the majors competitors. Think about how the non-acquiring partner would be affected if, for example UAL acquired SKYW Inc. and then controlled SKYW DAL feed, or vice versa or LUV or AA its becoming interesting.