uptpilot,

Just playing devil's advocate, but aren't the regionals burdened by the very scenario you describe, yet people successfully make the jump? They had 250 hr wonders from every fly-by-night pt 61 or 141 outfit as of a decade ago, and other than the Gulfstream gang (Colgan, Comair and Pinnacle crashes) "it's morning again in America", as far as the flying public is concerned or even cares to be.

Technology has made the airplanes very reliable, and the management teams have really put some serious gambling stock on the notion that the airplane automation, statistically, would fail in an insignificant enough frequency to make the existence of a sub-par cohort of human "systems monitors", presumably incapable of recovering a crippled aircraft in IMC or energy challenging conditions, not a concern for the airline. Hell of a gamble, but it seems the regionals aren't scared of their pilot group. So, why would JetBlue?

The rest of your points are dead on. In the absence of people willing to forego the compensation model of the regional underclass as a matter of principle, the only true leverage a US airline pilot has in an RLA-type legal environment, is a marked increase in regional fatalities. Perhaps with a further erosion in mx contracts and quality, the reliability of the modern airliner will be compromised significantly, which would then uncover systemic deficiencies in the pilot population. So far, only Allegiant appears to come close to that scenario, but I'm not privy to the realities of mx quality at different regionals or mainline.