Colossus,
WHile I agree that the chapt 11 process is not perfect, it is not the panecea that most seam to think it is. VERY few airlines survive chapter 11, and the percentages of European airlines surviving deep structural problems is much greater than the USA airlines. Recent examples of Swiss and ALitalia come to mind.
BA and AirFrance survived similar problems that wound up removing Eastern and PanAm from the market place.
But on the whole I would LOVE to see airlines actually fail faster. At the moment there are more barriers to getting out of aviation than there are to getting into it.
Cheers
Wino