Hopefully they will shift it to mainline so they don't have to worry about finding pilots. Or the whole cycle of rinse and repeat is starting again. I think its a mix of both this time

They'll whipsaw the wholly owned's to get where they want; then consolidate them for staffing and efficiency.
They'll buy a few regionals as their planes time out for short money as a staffing fix.
Do not be surprised to see mainline acquire C-series positions, or to convert E175's to E190's.
The current economics driving the 50 seaters out of the market will also hit the E175 operators as fuel costs increase. They're saying 8 years, sooner if fuel spikes. Add to this the difficulty expected with regional staffing and the transfer back to mainline flying becomes logical.

I am strangely okay with this. May hurt those of us in the regionals, especially those with no future, but in the long run will be good.

Best possible outcome is everything back at the majors, hope it happens.

On a side note, I'm glad you've backed off the "Eagle is the place to be" stuff. I like realism.

It still is.
The guys at non owned carriers will eventually be left out in the cold.

Since the true future commodity will be a pilot, should legacies "buy" other non-owned regionals as their planes croak essentially for their pilots, this consolidation may not necessarily leave a non-owned regional carriers pilots "out in the cold". In a merger scenario, they may do no worse then a presently wholly-owned carrier. Ironically, it is Envoy that is especially vulnerable as it at present has no investment in its future. Should Parker come back in the future with another weak offer, it could be 2016 before replacement aircraft are placed there.

By then, the attrition at Envoy could outpace Envoys functional viability and force fragmentation in reverse leaving a wholly-owned carriers pilots "out in the cold", so to speak. The meaning would simply have Envoy as the acquired asset and its pilots in the more vulnerable position in an asset acquisition as opposed to the acquirer.

Whether Parker likes it or not, his window with Envoy is fairly limited. If attrition at Envoy isn't stabilized fairly soon, they'll have to start burning the furniture to heat the house. As it is, most Envoy pilots are actively seeking employment and virtually all that get another offer will leave. That momentum may happen faster then Parker expects or wants and then outside forces will control him vs. the other way around. If his plan is NOT to fragment Envoy, he better act quickly. If his plan IS to fragment it, then he's coupled to the localizer quite nicely.

So extending this logic, are you saying that guys who eventually want to end up at a legacy carrier but are now bailing from Eagle for places like Frontier and Virgin are going to regret it later?

I think he is referring mainly to non-wholly owned Regionals.

I understand that. I am curious if the same logic can be extended to the situation I mentioned. Hence my question...

I hope Mason isn't using Endeavor as the newest example of how to get to mainline. Their flow isn't worth the ink used to write it.