I'm not justifying anything, only laying out management's likely playbook.

Starting pay is presently a third of the American wholly-owned's. That's undeniably unacceptable. A 3rd year Captain's W2 is on par with a 1st year Envoy FO's. Also unacceptable. However, if 1st year pay came up to $35-45k, in line with SkyWest/RAH/TSA/etc., and Captains lose the 200 base rate along with reasonable pay bumps, I'm simply saying a mainline flow program might delay the decision to jump ship to an LCC. But pay absolutely needs to be in the ballpark.