Terrible news, for everyone at United, employees and management alike. Yes Chapter 11 will mean United will fly as usual with protection from it's creditors, but there's no future in operating like that.
You then think of airports like Denver, O'Hare, Dulles, SFO, LAX, all major United hubs. I know people will say that if they did then cease to operate, other carriers would move in to take up the slack. But look at St. Louis after TWA, it's lost traffic in a huge way.
This is not good.........
Best of luck to everyone involved at United.