United's labour costs have been unreasonably high for years and with less than adequate management this has severly compounded their problems to the point of possible extinction.
Plying unprofitable routes with huge running costs is always fraught with danger for any airline.
This airline was in deep trouble even before 9/11 and the Air Transportation Stabilisation board knows this damned well.
So what now?
Pump in money that will evaporate or let them fall into Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection by denying them the cash injection.
The possibilities?
In Chapter 11 expect to see a 40% reduction of staff, routes, aircraft etc and hope for the best.
If it emerges from CH11 it will be a fraction of its former size but alot more competitive.
If bankrupted this will at least stabilise American, Delta and Northwest primarily as thats probably to be expected.
The problem deepens because staff have alot of their own super invested as a proponent of UAL shares thanks to the staff buy-out some years back.
Not only will these people be out of a job but have their nest-eggs severly slashed by owning what could potentially be a worthless stock.
Remember a few years ago a certain Ansett Captain touting that the AN staff (at the time) should attempt a company buy-out by securing their super as Ansett stock to buy out Newscorps share and using the same finance and trading organisation that United used?
What a recipe for disaster that would have been!
The even bigger disaster would be if some 10,000 odd United pilots were dumped on the world market!
Judging by what happened in Oz after the An collapse about 35-40% would secure work in the USA leaving some 6000 pilots without work.
Those already unemployed pilots should really hope this doesnt come to bare as the competition will really get strong and the companies will try to recruit at lesser rates because of a glut of pilots on the world market.
A disaster either way.