What is happening to the Airline industry now happened to our railroads back in the 1970's.
What the government did then, and will likely do again, is take the bankrupt carriers and consolidate them into one company, then keep it afloat until it can support itself again. (In the case of the railroads, this was "Consolidated Railroad Corporation, better known as "Conrail", which was fairly recently bought out by CSX.) Like the railroads, the airline is too important to allow it to dissolve into nothing.
J_A_B