Here is what I have been told.

Pinnacle and Mesaba are not merging. Colgan and Mesaba are merging.

Mesaba's contract states that if planes go to Pinnacle then SOME of the pilots go too.

Not all of mesaba's pilots will be able to come over to Pinnacle. Some will have to go to Colgan.

Mesaba will have a "pinnacle vacancy" that will list the amount of pilots that will come with the jets. It could be 10 or could be a couple hundred. The amount will be detrmined by management. People will bid for this vacancy if they want to come to pinnacle with the jets. It will be seniority based.

When the bid closes and the people come to pinnacle there will be an SLI via the alpa merger policy. Once that takes place the people left at mesaba will have an SLI with colgan via the alpa merger policy.

The Colgan and Mesaba merger will then take place. The ground, dispatch, etc etc will begin to be intergrated.