Well, I assume from all the posts about the great service and low fares that Independence was the carrier with the pricing power in all its markets. They set a low price, and eveyone else had to scramble to match them.
Did anyone tell the folks running FLYi that they need to meet their costs AND make a modest profit when they set that price? My economics education amounts to, literally, ECON 101. Even I can figure out that you can't have "loss leader" pricing on EVERY product you put out.
From the way they did business, it appears that their only interest was burning through their investors' cash to force everyone else to burn through cash, too. They had a 45% load factor in December, 2004. DECEMBER! With Rj's! 45%!
It's simply a miracle that they've survived this long. (Okay, the irony of that last sentence is not lost on this USAirways employee. Chill.)
I'm sorry to see anyone lose their job over incompetent mismanagement. Maybe they will get saved if they can re-up with a larger carrier to provide feed. There might be some value left in that scenario.