But they had to know that the world would be agressive in getting things running again for our collective global sakes. That a vaccine needed be developed in record time, a year. With this timeline, it would have been a well educated guess to first offer early outs, keep people on the payroll since the government was paying for it anyway, and keep pilots current. I think it was more than luck for UAL. Simply put, they were, and correctly, betting on a speedy recovery, because in their minds there was no other way.