hows that going to work with AA scope? I doubt it is allowed.

It would work however management wants it to... that's the joy of a startup, you make all the rules and then after you start making money labor can spend 15 years trying to dig themselves out of the hole.

Is there any clues as to ‘focus cities’ that would lead us to understand where their pilot bases may be?

Not on that but EVERYONE, from the senior captain to the most junior FO, is on year one of the pay scale. You aren’t going to get a much cheaper payroll than that.

Nobody forces anyone to go there. But the promise of shiny new jets, a chance to be the super senior guy from the start and potential equity upside will be a strong force.

If you look back through 50-60 years of guys/girls rolling the dice on a start up and cashing in big, how many success stories are there out there? I’m thinking 100 or so guys at Southwest and I think some of the FedEx guys? Ex Flying Tigers guys? I can’t remember the FedEx story.

Couple that with Eastern II, III, Braniff II, Skybus, PanAm II, too many to name. JetBlue would have possibly been on the list, David Neeleman’s brilliance notwithstanding, had it not been for their impeccable timing.

I’m sure the guys at the top of the SL at JBLU are living the good life. I don’t know if they got an equity stake at the beginning, but they’ll be at the top of the list till they retire. Can Neeleman do it again? With enough funding, I think he can pull off his small to mid size market plan for a while, but Allegiant already exists in a lot of those markets. Is he going smaller? Or is he going to compete with Allegiant? And if so, will Allegiant fight back?

True - but he only needs a couple of hundred warm bodies to get started. I don’t see him having any difficulty finding people who will take that bet.

Those top guys at Jetblue got a nice equity stake in the company. Came out to well over 7 figures.

Those top pilots? No they didn't. Not even close. Low to mid 6 figures at best, if their timing was impeccable. Senior management did better.

Gotcha. Not what I heard from guys hired right after. I’m probably wrong though.