A bankrupt airline is anxious not to lose customers, especially business travelers, and may be wary of cutting service below competitors' levels for fear of confirming passenger suspicions that the company is not long for this world.

Airline mergers are very difficult. They require a lot of cooperation from labor, management attention and financing. All those things are in short supply when you're just struggling to survive.

An airline doesn't wait till it's down to its last dollar to file. It'll be difficult to keep dragging it out. Without new financing, from a purely cash perspective, they are already in trouble to be assured they can reorganize in bankruptcy.

An airline doesn't wait till it's down to its last dollar to file, ... It'll be difficult to keep dragging it out. Without new financing, from a purely cash perspective, they are already in trouble to be assured they can reorganize in bankruptcy.