If you try to wait to buy an airline in bankruptcy, you better be sure you are the winning bidder. No one thought Republic could beat Southwest, but it happened.

UA and CAL are essentially equal airlines. Pilots always try to pick obscure facts about who is failing or who is the better airline, but in the end there is little difference there. UA and CAL are primed for a status/category integration if it occurs. If by some weird chance UA is broken up, they have a great franchise, poorly run, and I predict that the vast majority would be picked up somewhere. Let's just hope the rest of the industry doesn't adopt the SWAPA model of "you get a staple job and thank us for it." The DAL/Pan Am model is a much better template. (don't work for UA or CAL, so don't bother)

I think LCC is the candidate for a chop job, they don't really have much to offer besides DCA. (well and LGA for now)