I think it's now abundantly clear that failing carriers should not be purchased by other carriers. IF they are going to fail, they should be allowed their destiny - faliure.
An airline should stand on it's own feet or let the marketplace insure it doesn't stand. If it does indeed fail, the ASSETS can be purchased by other carriers without the hassle of integration squabbles and their will be no "expectation" demands.
If your carrier is solvent, you'll never worry about this. If your carrier isn't, you'll also never worry about this as you'll have no "expectations" from being rescued.
Survival of the fittest !
Do you think that pilots have the final say in mergers and acquisitions? They may have a very small say in the matter, but those decisions are made in the executive suite, not by pilots on the line.
You need to analyze WHY the management of AA and AWA pursued acquiring TWA and U. In AA's case, they had a capacity problem with DFW and ORD and were looking for other airports in the middle of the country to funnel excess traffic. Their first choice was NWA, but NWA management priced themselves at a stratospheric level that AA management couldn't justify. AA went with TWA because of their STL hub, although they paid $1 for the company. In AA's case, they felt that they needed another airport to handle excess capacity and were willing to take on the many liabilities of TWA in order to get another midwest hub (although STL, with its inability to generate high revenue O&D, was not optimum for AA). I am sure that AA management planned on dismantling most of TWA; there were more liabilities than assets. In this case, management had little concern about the additional employees and I'm sure that they were planning on attriting down the numbers over time with near zero newhiring.
For AWA management, they felt that they needed to reach a large enough scale that they would not eventually disappear by being acquired or going chap 7. U offered AWA an instant increase in size so that it is now much harder for AWA to go out of business. There is a certain amount of logic in this thinking. In the last few years, the largest financially troubled airlines were able to find financing while there were several smaller airlines that no longer exist (Access Air, Independence Air, Great Plains, Hooters Air, Legend Airlines, Midway Airlines, National Airlines, Southeast Airlines, TransMeridian, Vanguard).
The bottom line is that airline acquisitions/mergers are decisions made in the boardroom, not in the cockpit.