No matter how you cut the mustard, the 5 domicile deal is just a bad idea. I just don't think it's saving that much money, if any. All it's doing is pi$$ing pilots off. It's also greatly reducing the amount of applicants that are coming o NJA, I'm sure.
You wanna have domiciles, fine. No big deal. Just make sense with them. Have a lot of large hub choices, not just one. There are so many airports out there with a TON of airline service:
ATL, EWR, JFK, LGA, PHL, BWI, IAD, CLT, MIA, DTW, MSP, ORD, CLE, MEM, DFW, STL, DEN, LAX, SFO, SEA, PHX, LAS, just to name a few. All of these airports are airline HUBS, which means you can get most anywhere in one leg. With even just a little bit of frickin planning, you could optimize crew placement and get them to airplanes in one frickin leg, or in a lot of cases by taxi, and it would probably be a helluva lot cheaper than sticking everyone in 5 cities and airlining the hell out of 'em.
Of course, I don't really believe this whole domicile thing is meant to optimize anything. I think it's something that management looks at as salvage from a failed contract negotiation on their part. When it comes renewal time, they've got a carrot that they're going to try to dangle in front of the pilots in exchange for smaller raises. Oh they'll whine, bitch, pi$$ and moan about how it's going to cost them money to open more domiciles, the pilots should take less pay because they're so nice in doing this, and waaaaah waaaah waaaaaah waaaaaaah, when in reality, it's going to SAVE them money and also increase the qualified applicant pool by a ton.
Well, there's my prediction anyway.