Why not look at scope this way - would the pilot group, as a whole, be happy with a 20% pay raise?

Sure - let's just give away all flying above 300 seats. No biggie right, it's just a small part of our fleet. Plus, the entire pilot group benefits from the pay raise and those guys flying the big equipment were going to retire anyway.

Scope is very important - the pay rates don't matter if a bunch of pilot positions are lost. Look at Compass vs the DC-9. Sure, the DC-9 is a junior airplane, but each DC-9 that was parked because Compass came in had one Captain position that paid Captain's wages. I'm sure there are some FOs that would prefer a DC9 A position over a 320 or 757 B position.

Same thing can (and is) happening in the larger airplane. Air France's 380 is probably pretty efficient. What happens when they get more and need a place to fly them. Will we see them on CDG-ATL? Or Skyteam might find it's cheaper to fly Seoul-DTW with one of their new 380s vs Delta doing it with a 777.