UAL carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey? Interesting thought, but I don't see it. The economic cycle is rapidly heading into a deep recession and credit markets have all but shut down.
UAL has enough cash on hand to get through several down quarters before having to raise additional capital. UAL's debt has also been trimmed, not only through bankruptcy, but also by paying down $2.3B of debt in 2007. They also do not have any large CapEx going forward (read: aircraft orders).
For UAL to be likely to be carved up, it would either have to be in dire financial straits (their balance sheet is as healthy as any other carrier, so I don't see this) or there would have to be functional credit markets where an outside business could easily raise capital to purchase pieces of UAL.
If you take the time to research the credit markets, you'll find that they are in complete turmoil. The Fed's TAF (term auction facility) was an interesting attempt to get the markets moving again, but the problem is that there is a huge flight to safety.
As far as Alaska v United, I don't know which seniority list will do better in the upcoming economic downturn. For United, they have a fairly large pilot shortage and most pilots are tired of flying high credit hour lines. I view this as a positive for United; they can easily trim mainline block hours without having to reduce pilot headcount.
