Brilliant, I am ok with this.
I like the Idea of taking the list of guys you talked about, for sake of argument lets say top ~1000 are NW guys, and fence them from any Delta aircraft or base until they retire. Open up the relative seniority to everyone else.
The guys on the top of the NW scale stay there. They get better pay and work rules and can bid anything they presently could. Great deal for them.
For the rest of us, we get a fair intergration now. Maybe put a seat lock inplace starting in the fall for a year or two so the company can get past all the training mess.
slinky