The main difference between then and now is the largest four carriers have achieved “too big to fail” status with something like 80% of domestic seats on those four carriers.
Back then the market was much more diversified between 10+ airlines, and the government at the state and federal level could let some go out of business without a huge disruption. Even back then some state governments had decided that their local airlines were too important to allow them to fail. As an example Minnesota bailing out NWA.