First of all, this is all speculation, since buying JB doesn't make any sense and not likely to be approved, with UAL ramping up BOS and having a fortress hub in NYC. Too much overlap.

Secondly anything less than a 10 year fence would mean nothing to 80% of the seniority list.

First of all, even with a 100% status and category merger, plus adjustments for differential in pay and work rules, the most senior JetBlue pilot would be "seniority fenced", meaning he wouldn't have the seniority to just jump into a WB left seat. Let's say he ended up around 6,000 out of 13,000 on the list, which is probably 8-10 years from WB Captain. Sure he could hold WB FO, but there would have to be a fence on that as well. It would still take 10 years to hold a seat, so why even have a fence for Captain?

I don't like fences. They kick the problem down the road and have unintended consequences as are happening now. A seniority list integration should take that into account. Flying WB Captain is a career expectation, which unlike a fence, doesn't have a 5 or 10 year expiration. Our 2,000 or so pilots under the age of 40 will agree with that.

I sympathize with those former United pilots who went from retiring at around 400 on the list to over 2,000 because of the merger, even though they will be NB Captains sooner (many of them are now). I didn't experience that and I'm grateful. A bad integration with a carrier like JB just exacerbates that problem.