On Dec 18, 2008, it will be a month since the N636BR flew its acceptance flight, and should have gone to paint.
Even an optimist would not guess that anything will happen over Xmas, so my best guest would be that if everything is worked out, the plane won't be completed with its paint until Feb 1. That's a best case scenario. Naturally, after months of delays (the original date given to start was the end of Sept 2008), I expect the worst.
Those of us who have signed contracts to fly (months ago) have not been paid a penny (well, I guess I can only speak for me). Plus, my recurrent times out in April, as it will for the captains that Felix trained in Oct 2008. I'm sure there are folks who time out before me.
My hunch is that they are trying to cut a "super duper deal" on the planes, or cutting the same kind of deal to get out of the aircraft leases altogether. They have a bunch of money in them (like multiple 6 figure amount), but it still may be cheaper to let them go now, during a world wide economic meltdown, and collapse of oil that provides the financing.