In any any case, it is an opinion article. However your right in that articles' are saying "3" for contract in hubs. Now the question is how many years for pullout, notification of cancellation and or intent of pullout? How about the idea of a mere drawdown in these select hubs? I think what you would see would be complete drawdown of select CRJ200 routes that can be service by CRJ900s. Drawdown on B757 runs that can be serviced with A321s or serviced from LAX. They will trim the fat, however to leave phoenix vulnerable would obviously pave the way for the scenarios in the article below.

Here's a start:
Southwest Airlines possible new sponsor for US Airways Center?

PHX relevancy will always be hard to argue and will get harder as US/AA move forward in the merger. However, I don't see any of this happening overnight. You'll never touch phoenix as a 3 year captain, give it up.