I don't really worry that UA won't make it. I think that they will recover, it's just going to take time. It's probably also going to take come court ordered concessions from some of the labor groups.
There are a few people at my company (mostly senior types) who actually hope that our relationship with UA dissolves so that we can become a low fare carrier using CRJs. As they see it, UA is actually limiting our growth. I've heard that 60-70% of the people that fly my company, start and finish their flights with us. It would require hiring in ticketing and marketing.
Most of us, however, are strongly pulling for UA, if for no other reason than, as Doug put it, if we go on our own, there will be a lot of furloughs. Secondly, most of us would like to move up to a major carrier at some point, and if there are thousands of jobless UA pilots out there, the pilot pool will be overflowing for some time to come.