It sounds like they are attempting a quickie, GM-style bankruptcy: The old company sells assets to the new company, and the old company goes chapter 7 as quickly as possible. Of course, they would need a court's permission to dump the liabilities - and some of those 620 owners might object to getting tossed out with no chance to recover much.

And the new company has no employees or former employees, so they can do whatever they want in terms of hiring and paying pilots.