you guys are acting as if when this merger takes place that it is going to happen overnight. If and when it does happen it will take at least 5-7 years for the dust to finally settle. Remember not only do they have a tons of employees between both groups they also have other contracts with vendors that they must take of, government loop holes that they will have to jump through and last but not least branding this new company that they plan on developing. This kind of things take years to pan out and they aren't going to slash jobs immediately. After approval they will still be watch under a careful eye by the government to make sure the operate under the promises that they made to the regulators. They will probably operate as two seperate companies under one ticker so at least the stock price will grow. The only reason that this merger seems to be going so quick is because they want to get this done while we are under the Bush Admin. Now I am not saying that there will be no job loss because there will be because of numerous overlap. But it will not happen fast. You as a pilot will still have time to react and make adjustments. And of you are hard headed in this whole process you will lose.