The process is an attempt to mimic a US chapter 11 style bankruptcy reorganization. In essence, the US chapter 11 "loophole" has become the ultimate weapon of choice against labour, allowing contracts to be torn up, with the unions having a gun pointed at their head.
This was all covered in the book Hard Landing: The Epic Contest for Power and Profits That Plunged the Airlines into Chaos by Thomas Petzinger Jr and has been going on since the 80's when deregulation allowed the unscrupulous to raid whatever they could from the airlines.
from wikipedia:
Chapter 11
In the new millennium airlines have fallen under intense scrutiny for what many see as abusing Chapter 11 Bankruptcy as a simple tool for escaping labor contracts, usually 30-35% of an airline's operating cost[5].
Every major US. airline has filed for Chapter 11 since 2002[6] . In the space of 2 years (2002 - 2004) US. Airways filed for bankruptcy twice[7] leaving the AFL-CIO[8] , pilot unions and other airline employees claiming the rules of Chapter 11 have helped turn the USA into a
corporatocracy.[9]
In the US it also has the added bonus of destroying employees pension entitlements, removing that liability from the restructured airline balance sheet. The net result in the US was a very small number of executives and investors in US airlines worked away with hundreds of millions, if not billions, and the airline employees were decimated.
It's simply an accounting device to screw over employees, and probably shareholders. This engineered crisis has been a long time in the making.