It's funny you accidentally submitted your post in this forum. It's something we've had some personal experience with. Let me first say that I agree totally with your opinion that this should have started a long time ago and most certainly include the entire Caribbean basin.
Several years ago we spent a considerable amount of time doing due diligence on a project on one of the Bahamian family islands. During that timeframe we had numerous meetings with the then PM and his DPM who seemed to have more interest in our professional backgrounds then our proposed real estate development. Eventually they broached the subject of BahamasAir and it's ongoing loses and rather large growing debt.
We had actually already given some thought to this matter and included a provision in our "Heads of Agreement" with the Government that we would have the option to operate our own airline to ensure sufficient uplift to our proposed Comunity Destaination Resort.
Anyway to make a long story short we suggested that they give serious consideration to spearheading a movement within the Caribbean to form one major airline. We felt strongly the range of synergies would be extensive but unfortunately the political will to try something new was just not there at that time.
We still think it's a good idea and with the current economic realities for airlines it likely stands a much better chance of coming to fruition now then ever.
It will be very interesting as you say to watch the events unfold.........