I think many were waiting for the merger to be approved which certainly seemed like a no brainer considering past airline merger history.

Now there are several paths forward. Winning the appeal would seem the very least likely and best path. Liquidation is certainly on the table and the worst path. Everything in between isn’t likely to be fun. The problem is that everyday someone waits around to see how it turns out is a day someone else gets hired ahead of you somewhere else.

At some point on the seniority list anything besides liquidation is likely to be better than starting at the bottom somewhere else. Age and where you live or want to live also being outside factors.

The absolute worst would be slogging through a mess for the next couple years to ultimately liquidate anyway. All that lost seniority elsewhere and the very real possibility in a couple years other properties aren’t hiring.

Another thing to consider is getting ahead of a wave of spirit refugees if things start to get worse.

Then there is an outside chance spirits situation gets bad enough that an acquisition by another carrier does get approved. A seniority integration would most likely happen, albeit not a friendly one with spirit being a distressed (bankrupt) carrier. However, in that scenario one would still most likely be senior to themselves if they stay vs had they left and gotten hired at the bottom of the aquiring six months or a year prior to the acquisition.

In the past you just rode it out bc if your airline were going bankrupt it was likely that the rest of the industry was in hard times as well. This is kind of uncharted territory.

Age 67 would be a major wildcard that could drop a grenade on everything. Hiring will freeze everywhere. If spirit needs to furlough every single 65+ pilot will result in at least one more furlough.