My company is a good bit smaller than American and we have about 900 still laid off, with only very limited numbers recalled. American had well over 1,000 laid off, and so when they bought TWA, well over half of their pilots (who were stapled to the bottom of the list....) were also kicked out.
Are Fedex or UPS hiring? Some of their recent new-hires came over with many thousands of hours, but if one can adjust to being an all-night freight dog (waiting for seniority to fly in the day), then those companies could be a very good choice and would appear to offer some job security. Fedex has NO pilots laid off! Packages can't be shipped over the internet, nor charter a NetJet etc, which an increasing number of business people have chosen.
Be aware that JetBlue only recently began paying for their A-320s: before that reality, their operating costs were artificially low.
