This sucks.
I don't know where we got the idea that if an industry is big enough, the government gets to bail it out. Some of these airline companies should have gone under a long time ago. Their assets would have been bought out by more robust companies, and the industry as a whole, over time, would have become healthier.
As for the pension plan, I'm no expert in how these things are done, but I'd like to think a good pension plan would have provisions that protected it from company disaster or bankruptcy. Of course, why bother if Uncle Sammy is there to save your bacon?