Interesting idea. Before you give it too much grey matter time, have a word with (Prof) Tony Eccles. He got himself involved in workers co-ops some time ago. Worth talking to. He can be googled.
Also, pilots are a funny lot. In my very limited experience, many, (too many) pilots want to turn up fly the bus, and go home. Pilots that give a monkeys about "managing" something are very rare. They would rather go home, and then moan about their managers on pprune.