Why wouldn't this be good for wholly owned pilots?

In the end, there will never be a shortage of pilots applying for the Majors. The great sucking sound will be a the regionals as they leave their low paying, 8 leg/13 hour work day jobs for a more lucrative career. Not much will change at the majors, but the regionals will have to adapt with better pay and enticements to keep their planes flying. This is bad for the majors since it keeps more people interested in staying at the regionals, but good for the majors because it will increase the regional flying costs and leveling the playing field between mainline and feeder.

Pipe dream but I would love to see it

I realize this is your wishful thinking but why would DAL do that? There is no possible business advantage for DAL to do as you have suggested even if SkyWest agrees to sell themselves to DAL, which is highly unlikely. DAL is not interested in buying another regional. As to buying Air Wisconsin is just absurd.

You have to pay attention to what RA and top DAL executives have been saying for the last 2 years. RA has said repeatedly that had he been in charge of DAL he would not have signed such a long DCI contract with SkyWest when DAL sold ASA to SkyWest. RA also said he plans to keep most of the regional flying INHOUSE, which means Mesaba, Compass and Comair, although the future of Comair is not as clear. Plus the name of the game is to keep Regionals from growing too big for their britches. SkyWest is already too big for their own good and saddled with way too many CRJ200s that DAL does not want.

A more accurate assessment would be to predict that DAL legal team are looking for ways to terminate DCI contracts with CHQ, Shuttle America, SkyWest/ASA, Pinnacle and Mesa even as we speak. DAL is probably planning to reduce the DCI numbers down from 9 today to 4 or 5 at the max. Mesaba is going to be left with all jet fleet and even their CRJ200 will probably be going away, leaving Mesaba with all CRJ900s and possibly CRJ700s in the future. Stapling Mesaba to the DAL is a remote possibility but possible nonetheless, in view of the fact that DAL already has CRJ900 payrate and DAL can either straight staple or give longevity credit for pay and benefits to bring top 150 senior pilots on board with the idea.

I do not think your idea is a pipe dream although I don't think there will ever be a severe pilot shortage. The operating cost at Mesaba is not that low especially in view of that fact almost all pilots are now at a 3 year payrate and top 250 or so are making way more than a third year DAL pilot. With the recent pay snap back provisions, I would say the top 150 or so are making over $120,000 and the top 151 to 250 are making close to $100,000 if not more. Plus Mesaba already has work rules matching very close to NWA/DAL work rules. Only few items are left out like Trip duty rig (Mesaba has min day of 4 hours and trip guaranty which is pay protected), 100% DH pay (Mesaba only pays 50%), min overnight no less than 10 hours (Mesaba is 9 hours but this is going to be changed soon if the Congress passes its proposed legislation on the FAA Crew duty and rest requirement), and few LC/SC reserve rules which I am not that familiar with.

Can it happen? I think it can, but the likelihood of it happening is remote. The numbers has to justify stapling all Mesaba pilots to the DAL list and how to deal with the top 150 or so senior pilots at Mesaba to agree to stapling would pose a serious challenge. I am not sure how many pilots within this top 150 are already over the age 60, but I think there are more than a few.

Staple with a fence and caveat that any Mesaba pilot over 50 has the "option" of "seat lock" until they retire.

That is exactly what will happen.

Mainline flying is the main course of all the legacies. Regionals are the side dishes which allow them to maintain an edge on the competition.

While I think we'll a a spurt of new large aircraft purchases, I'm not sure most of the legacies are seeking a return to overcapacity and cutthroat, bankruptcy inducing brinkmanship ticket pricing.

Why staple Mesaba? Is there any logic behind these pipe dreams or is it just wishful thinking?

How about this picture. USAirways or United fall into more financial trouble and in bankruptcy the pilots are forced to accept another consessionary contract where they give up scope on 100-120 seat aircraft. The regionals grow and mainline shrinks to trans-con 757s and wide body international only. The regional whipsaw continues, but the planes are just larger and regional pay will increase, but not monumentally. If you are lucky enough to get on with a major you will have it made, but it will take decades before they hire because they will be recalling furloughed pilots back after shrinking to half size.

This is awful grimm, but I think there is about as much chance of this happening as some of the other fairy tales.

The economic recovery seems to be rapidly gaining steam over the past month, uncertainity seems to be giving way to businesses preparing for an all out expansion. It will be interesting to see the strategy the airlines use, maintaining the status quo could leave them with their pants down for increasing consumer spending coupled with summer demand.