…nobody, of course. Even the best performing airline is still losing cash faster than an avgeek at a collectibles show, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be the best of the worst, right? Let’s take a look.
Once again, I turned to Raymond James to untangle how to compare cash burn on an apples to apples basis. We now have third quarter numbers to review.
As a reminder, Raymond James standardizes the numbers by excluding grants (that’s CARES Act stuff which shouldn’t be counted as cash in when looking at ongoing company health) and non-aircraft financing (which comes in a big chunk and then has to go back eventually). We also used the number that pulls out severance costs, because that seems more even and more relevant to the actual operation. Here are the third quarter results:
Adjusted Daily Cash Burn
| Airline | 3Q 2020 | 2Q 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Alaska | $5 million | $5 million |
| Allegiant | $845,652 | $2 million |
| American | $43 million | $59 million |
| Delta | $33 million | $52 million |
| JetBlue | $8 million | $10 million |
| Southwest | $16 million | $17 million |
| Spirit | $2 million | $6 million |
| United | $29 million | $40 million |
Here’s the good news: everyone improved. Even Alaska — which looks flat due to rounding — did slightly better. And congrats to Allegiant for getting under $1 million a day. Of course, Allegiant burning a million dollars a day would be a lot less scary if it was being burned by United. Why? Because United is a much bigger operation, and that’s why we need to look at more numbers for context here.
Below you’ll see the cash burn as a percent of daily revenue to get a sense of scale of these burn numbers.
Adjusted Daily Cash Burn as % of 2019 Daily Revenue
| Airline | 3Q 2020 | 2Q 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Alaska | 20% | 23% |
| Allegiant | 17% | 38% |
| American | 34% | 47% |
| Delta | 26% | 40% |
| JetBlue | 34% | 43% |
| Southwest | 25% | 28% |
| Spirit | 23% | 53% |
| United | 24% | 34% |
I may have joked about Allegiant’s results above, but when you look at it this way, that is still a really good result compared to the rest. Since Allegiant is a leisure airline with low fixed costs and a desirable geography, it has done very well. Alaska is no slouch either, just as was the case in Q2. The biggest surprise is probably Spirit. It really smashed that Q2 number and is in a much better position from a cash burn perspective.
If you didn’t cut enough in Q2 but you did in Q3, things can change quickly in your favor. Whereas for an airline like United which was quick to react in March, you’d expect to see improvement from Q2 to Q3 be lower. More had already been achieved during Q2.
While it’s nice to know how much cash an airline is burning… wouldn’t we really want to know just how many months of cash each airline had left? This data below assumes that there is no change in revenue between now and the date of doom, so it’s a highly conservative number. But at least it gives you a sense of how they compare to each other.
Months of Available Cash
| Airline | 3Q 2020 | 2Q 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Alaska | 41.4 | 19.1 |
| Allegiant | 36.2 | 21.3 |
| American | 18.7 | 10.8 |
| Delta | 33.5 | 15.1 |
| JetBlue | 33.9 | 12.1 |
| Southwest | 49.2 | 26.3 |
| Spirit | 33.3 | 11.7 |
| United | 26.9 | 19.1 |
That’s a whole lot of days of cash! You can thank the massive amounts of cash raised in Q3, including the big CARES Act loans, for these numbers looking a whole lot higher than they did at the end of Q2. It’s remarkable how much each airline is sitting on, but right now, that’s important.
Unsurprisingly, American has the lowest reserves. It has a year and a half with no revenue improvement before it has nothing left. But remember, airlines don’t just keep flying until they have no money. They file for bankruptcy long before that happens.
I’m not suggesting American is going bankrupt soon. It still has rope, but it sure needs things to get better faster than others. Meanwhile, there’s Southwest at the other end of the spectrum with a whopping 4+ years left if nothing improves. That kind of cushion means Southwest can feel more comfortable experimenting if it’s a risk worth taking. If it works, then great. If it doesn’t, Southwest can absorb the loss.
Overall, everyone looks better than they did last quarter from both a cash burn and cash-on-hand perspective. That doesn’t mean they can breathe easy, but it does mean they can possibly get off the ventilators.
42 comments on “And the Winner of the Q3 Cash Burn Derby is…”
With the prospect of at least one vaccine on the way and availability for the general public likely by the 2nd quarter of 2021, the chances are good that no airline will fail before the fall of 2021 at least. The 2021 summer travel season will likely be strong as pent up demand offsets pricing weakness from less business travel.
But let’s also keep in mind that all airlines have taken on enormous amounts of debt to survive and it will take years to pay that back down. Delta and Southwest chose not to participate in CARES Act part 2 loans which means they will have flexibility in their financial operations that other airlines will not.
Also, Delta did not spend all of its CARES Act grant money in the 2nd and 3rd quarters so has a “credit” on its books that it will use to reduce its labor costs in the 4th quarter, making it almost certain that it will lead the industry in return to profitability. Delta’s cash burn would have been much lower if it had burned all of the cash in the 2nd and 3rd quarters.
And the competitive situation is changing rapidly. Airlines like B6 and WN that have dramatically increased their presence in other airline markets may have to pull back some of their new growth (esp. in EWR) but they will have much larger operations in AA and UA hubs than they had before, meaning AA and UA’s market shares will fall, impacting pricing power.
Delta is unique among the big 3 in that it has gained capacity share in the 3rd quarter in key markets, esp. LAX and to East Asia, displacing AA and UA respectively, while maintaining its relative market share in every other major market. DL’s growth in MIA alongside WN’s in that same city will have a profound impact on AA.
The financial future for the industry won’t likely be defined in at least the first half of 2021 but in the 2nd half or beyond as competition stabilizes. The US government provided enough aid to make sure that the pandemic itself doesn’t cost any airlines their lives but the lingering financial impact, much of which was established long before covid, will be what ultimately determines the outcome of the airline industry.
Delta just released updated investor guidance saying they should be at $10 million/day cash burn by December which is just 3 days away.
https://s2.q4cdn.com/181345880/files/doc_presentations/2020/11/10/DAL-Baird-2020-Global-Industrial-Conference-Final.pdf
3 days from now is November 13th.
yes… I should have said 3 weeks from today (which would be December).
And we know that they don’t count severance or debt payment in that number. When you are not comparing apples to apples, it’s kind of just PR at the moment.
Cranky – it’s time to give Mr. Dunn the boot. His comments are ruining otherwise tasteful discussion.
No cash burn analysis on Delta seems complete without a reminder and sympathy for the non-union employees forced into a 25% pay cut by Delta despite a cares act designed to keep their salaries 100% complete.
Shame on Delta.
You do realize that B6 did the same thing?
You do realize that tens of thousands of DL employees took leaves of absence, some of which will continue through March 2021 at least?
You do realize that Delta’s pilot MEC has agreed to a similar scheme of low credit hour for pilots that were targeted for furlough? UA’s plan was was to create a 3 tier pay system for its pilots.
You do realize that DL might end up being the only one of the big 4 not to furlough?
You do realize that WN has issued WARN letters and wants labor costs down?
You do realize that DL offered by far the largest retirement program and they also just received the largest profit sharing in the industry actually 2 weeks after the China travel suspension?
All airlines had to figure out how to cut costs. DL apparently has figured out a way to do so without furloughing and with a far higher percentage of voluntary cuts than any other airline.
Let’s see how this all shakes out but I am betting that DL’s employees will fare better than their peers at other airlines. And DL will end up a stronger airline as well.
And Tim Dunn, Delta’s #1 propaganda enthusiast, to the rescue for Delta…
Delta has been furloughing 25% of its workforce since April. Don’t kid yourself and twist facts. Just because they didn’t furlough to the street, doesn’t mean they didn’t furlough. They did. They just did it via forced reduced hours for even their most senior employees instead of putting the entire furlough on the back of junior workers. They’re both the same impact but Delta forced the furlough upon its most experienced and tenured employees since those employees make more money than the junior employees and create larger savings for Delta’s labor costs and then they spun it all as “shared suffering” when it was just greater savings to do it that way.
Delta is far from the only airline that had voluntary leaves.
Every airline had to cut labor costs, delta is just the only major airline of the big 4 to force every non-union employee to do it with no alternative since April and continuing now despite 100% salary backfill from the federal Cares act through October.
Unless you’re somehow suggesting Delta’s new benchmark in the industry is JetBlue?
It’s sad that Delta took federal funds intended to prevent furlough and kept it in their cash reserves instead of giving it to their people.
First, Delta AND JetBlue both announced their policy regarding employee work hours BEFORE the CARES Act was approved. If you think what Delta did was illegal, take it up with the Dept. of the Treasury. I strongly suspect that they are well aware of what Delta is doing and would have imposed punishment if they deemed it appropriate.
In contrast, United tried to impose cuts in hours AFTER the CARES Act was passed and without the approval of its unions. Both Congress people and the unions pushed back mightily and United backtracked.
And no, the CARES Act did not provide 100% reimbursement of labor costs – for any airline.
Delta has always done a better job of managing costs than most of its peers.
If you are a Delta employee and would like to tell us your name and what dept. you work in, then we will let you speak as a Delta employee. Using a pseudonym makes one an unknown, anonymous internet voice.
CF clearly introduced the conversation to look at where cash burn is at present. DL is already burning less cash than its peers. I am using my own name and looking at publicly available data and I support well-run airlines. All I can do is measure what Delta and other carriers do against the same data that is available to any other airline industry analyst.
Delta is further along in achieving the goal which CF recognizes all the airlines need to achieve which is cash burn zero first and then profitabililty.
Eric,
Some of the legacy carriers already achieved lower cash burn relative to last year’s costs than low cost carriers and the trend is likely continuing.
The determining factor is not how much exposure to any one market a carrier has but how well they can get costs out and generate higher revenues. Look at B6′ cash burn relative to DL and UA’s.
Nobody said it was illegal, I said it was sad and shameful. And that it was a pure extra savings move, not a shared suffering “rah rah” delta move as the delta propaganda suggests.
If I have 2000 extra employees out of 8000, I can either
1. cut the 2000 that make the least amount of money: 25% of the lowest paid employees or
2. I can cut all 8000 people’s hours by 25% and the average pay rate is significantly higher for those same hours = higher savings for Delta.
It hardly matters that delta announced 25% salary cuts a few days before the cares act passed (the idea that Delta’s dc office had no idea what was coming is ludicrous and actually suggests that delta took action knowing what was coming to give an excuse for further cuts), took the money, then acted as though the money based on the previous year’s full 100% of salary costs didn’t apply to them. The funding was to cover 100% of salary expense for delta employees, not to pad Delta’s coffers for aggressive competitive future moves. Delta always could’ve backtracked on their 25% salary cuts after taking the billions of federal aid based on 100% of previous years’ salaries.
It was legal what delta did, just not ethical to hurt their employees like that and furlough 25% since April.
And, no. It’s a forum for thoughts. As cute as it is for you to try to elicit Delta employee IDs and employee names to pass to delta security to win a blog comments war, thanks but no.
Unless you think that Delta was given private information from the Treasury, everyone else knew the rules as well.
Delta employees themselves will decide what they think was the best course of action. Using one’s own name is a matter of integrity.
Others believe it was unethical to make the person at the bottom of the seniority less to completely lose their job and perhaps their chance of ever working in the airline industry.
A true respect for others requires at least considering that someone else took a different path and came to a better conclusion than what you think should have been the case.
Specific to this discussion that CF started, Delta is well on its way to achieving a greater reduction in cash burn than any other airline.
1. You aren’t a delta employee. Stop acting like one or speaking like one. You’re a delta management enthusiast. That’s it.
2. Delta employees had zero ability to decide their course of action. Ed decided to use the federal funds for their salaries and spend them elsewhere: my entire point
3. As I’ve said above, the major reason delta is doing well on cash reduction in 3q is by furloughing by 25% through the entire quarter despite funds there to fund those labor cuts. That’s a cost advantage their major competitors didn’t have and a major asterisk in any cash analysis. It’s a “cash reduction” with a huge asterisk next to “employee morale”
Please know you cannot argue with Tim Dunn. In between waving his Delta Pom-Poms he is an expert both in science and medicine. I sometimes think Tim Dunn is a pseudonym for Ed Bastian.
I am getting really sick of reading a good article by cranky, then opening the comments to see Tim Dunn’s blather and Delta fetishing endlessly again and again…
Ba***
I will let you argue what you think about Delta’s moves but I will point out facts and correct a number of repeatedly wrong statements you have made:
1. Delta ground employees had their hours reduced from 40 to 32 hours/week which is a 20% reduction, not 25%.
2. Delta employees DID have a choice besides accepting reduced hours; they were given the option to take a leave of absence. In turn, Delta did not contest unemployment claims and DL actually filed them for employees in some states. Some DL employees made more money on unemployment than did as employees – but that has repeatedly happened in the larger economy as well. Delta pays larger unemployment insurance to states so it is not freeloading from society.
3. Other airlines DID have the ability to impose cuts to hours. Once again, B6 did it. UA tried to do it – but only after the CARES Act was enacted.
4. Delta did not use the money for any other reason; the $800 million in unused funds will be used to reduce 4th quarter labor costs.
Doug,
It is precisely because DL deferred some of its CARES Act credits until the 4th quarter that its cash burn for the 3rd quarter was higher than other competitors and also why DL’s 4th quarter costs will be much lower.
I have presented actual facts just as CF did. I have not represented myself as speaking for DL employees or by using any DL employees name (or modification thereof) including their CEO or attempting to say what any DL employee thought about any of this.
Cash burn numbers are factual. Deviating from facts to introduce any other narrative will most certainly be objectionable to some.
As is the case with other topics, I trust that CF will follow-up on this as the pandemic hopefully has less of an economic impact on airlines; CF has noted that there has already been dramatic improvements and that will certainly be the case. Not all will arrive at the same point at the same time.
Mr. Dunn, this is just my opinion. I am disappointed in reading Cranky’s post and having to read, what I consider a an almost never-ending recitation of comments by you, that are little more than marketing of DL. and disapproval of one or more, or all of its competiors. If you intend to challenge Cranky, fine, but too often what you say is little more than a press release from DL. I count 6 comments on this post alone.
Similar, are your comments about pandemic studies and the impact of the pandemic on flying.
I read Cranky because he writes in a manner and about things I enjoy. I’m sure you know more about airlines than I ever will. I’m sure you know about a being city council member and Georgia mayor more than I ever will. I just wish that whatever your comment, I will be able to say: “Well that’s interesting. I didn’t know that,” and not, “Well there’s Tom Dunn again, why bother reading his comment, as it seems to be the same thing time after time
Just an opinion.
Cash burn is based on facts. Financial statements. Not opinion. Either my financial comments are accurate or they are wrong and can be easily shown to be wrong.
Either Delta deferred $800 million in CARES Act grants until the 4th quarter which explains why their cash burn was not as low as it could have been in the 3rd quarter or they didn’t and my statement is wrong.
If my statement is accurate and factual, I have a hard time understanding why some people work so hard to avoid admitting that Delta might just have done a better job of developing and implementing a covid financial strategy than other carriers.
Don’t take my word, though. Read what actual industry analysts say about specific airlines in the industry.
I have nothing to do with being a Georgia mayor or city council member. I have no idea where that came from.
and the comments here are not between Cranky and me. I’m not challenging him.
Yes, as another poster commented recently, this blog seems now to belong to Mr. Dunn, not Mr. Snyder. I’ve noticed some regular contributors no longer post here. Sad.
Tim,
You love to say “you’re public. I don’t hide” yet there’s literally no Tim Dunn on the internet that anyone can find with a history of working at delta that isn’t a mayor currently in small town Georgia. It’s natural for people to do a google search on the topic since you love to berate others for not using their real name as you claim to do.
You hid behind your “worldTraveller” moniker for years on airliners.net before you were banned there so it gets a bit tiresome to hear you lecture others about using real names for the only purpose of you turning them into the company that fired you, Delta. Frankly, it’s just sad.
So many people have asked you kindly. Take your opinions to your blog. Create your own “Delta forever” blog and see if anyone reads it. Stop ruining the comments section of Brett’s blog. He actually writes thought-provoking material. You write Delta press releases. Find a new hobby on another blog.
HPN nonstops,
did it occur to you that you might have wrong “inputs” and so came up with the wrong conclusion? Actually, multiple wrong inputs and conclusions.
The topic of this site’s article, not a.net or anywhere else, is cash burn.
CF had a few conclusions but most of the article was a data dump – without conclusions from the data.
Delta did not use all of the CARES Act cash in the 3rd quarter; it has deferred $800 million to use in the 4th quarter to offset its labor costs in that quarter; I haven’t read a single analyst that expected Delta to do that or that the Treasury said they could not do that but it clearly changes how the 3rd quarter cash burn is viewed and how the 4th quarter financial reports from each airline have to be viewed.
Why me saying that triggers such visceral responses in some people is beyond my ability to understand.
Why it is so difficult for some people to admit that one company might actually be doing a better job than others of managing its finances in the middle of covid, I also cannot understand.
Whether CF revisits the topic of cash burn later, it is guaranteed that DL will outperform the industry in cash burn in the 4th quarter and beyond.
While CF didn’t come to a whole lot of conclusions, it is pretty clear that the carriers that get cash burn down the fastest and eliminate it first will be in a better financial place than others.
I can’t factually discuss whether someone likes one airline’s paint job or new app better than others – because that is based on opinion. I – and anyone else can discuss – based on facts – what an airline is doing with cash burn. CF’s article is factual and built on facts and data, not opinion and not insinuation – and so too have been my responses.
There is a very good reason why Tim Dunn, was banned from Airliners.net. He has an unhealthy need to spam up this site every chance he gets. Actual discussion is ruined here by him. It is an endless broken record. He needs to be cut loose so he can make his own blog, not ruin this one like a parasitic worm.
Given the much larger degree of international exposure by AA/UA/DL, one has to conclude the non-legacies reach a cash positive position much earlier than AA/UA/DL. It will be very interesting to see how big of a bite the non-legacies will take out of traditional legacy strongholds. We’ve already seen some of this take place, but I think it becomes more glaring as demand gains significant momentum while international remains on the weaker side.
Are the cash burn definitions identical this time? Last time, the numbers were adjusted to be consistent between the airlines.
Hk – These are just like last time, they are adjusted as noted in the post.
Steve I subscribed to this recently (free). Keeps me up to date on the industry. I don’t read religiously but…
It has gotten to the point I do not even have to read the comments to know what Tim Dunn is going to say.
No matter the post topic: DL= demigod and every OA after them= trash. Sometimes WN gets the benefit of the doubt (unless being compared to DL). Tim, I think you make some very insightful and thoughtful posts, however, you clearly have an extremely vested interest in DL being considered “the best.” That’s okay too, but being dismissive towards anyone else’s POV while constantly hoo-rahing the folks in Atlanta, grows tired. You state similar beliefs so often, I’m not sure if you are trying to convince me, or yourself.
@CF – a ventilator joke?!? Too soon… ;)
What’s the deal with AAs daily cash burn?
“1. Delta ground employees had their hours reduced from 40 to 32 hours/week which is a 20% reduction, not 25%.”
Actual DL employee here. This is an inaccurate statement. Our *payable* schedules for FT employees have been reduced 25% to 30/hrs. week. An earlier poster may have forgotten that lunch periods at DL are not paid.
In a few select locations, schedules are back to 40hrs. This is primarily to back fill large numbers of people exiting the company
thank you for your contribution to the discussion, Kevin.
If your hours were reduced from 40 to 30, what does a schedule look like? Did not every ground employee go from a 5 to 4 day work week?
Lunch wasn’t ever paid, correct?, just as they aren’t at many companies. Help me understand why not paying lunch reduces the work week by two additional hours/week.
One other data point that some posters might want to consider when trying to argue that Delta was “shameful” in cutting hours in order to reduce costs.
From their own 3rd quarter financial results, Delta reduced salary and benefits costs by 32% while United, the second best of the big 4 in terms of HR cost reduction, saw a 27% reduction in HR costs.
To somehow argue that a 32% reduction was gained by shameful tactics but no one was harmed by a 27% reduction in costs is more than a stretch from reality.
The simple fact is that the only real issue – which no one has yet to address – is that Delta somehow managed to “save” $800 million in CARES Act funding that would have reduced its losses and cash burn in the 3rd quarter while other carriers accounted for all of their federal CARES Act grants in their 2nd and 3rd quarter results.
Here is also what UAL said about the CARES Act:
CARES Act grant. During the nine months ended September 30, 2020, the company received approximately $5.1 billion in funding pursuant to the Payroll Support Program under the CARES Act, which consists of $3.6 billion of grants and $1.5 billion of an unsecured loan. The company also recorded $66 million for warrants issued to the U.S. Treasury Department, within stockholder’s equity, as an offset to the grant income. As of September 30, 2020, we recognized $3.1 billion of the grant as a credit to Special charges (credit) with the remaining $453 million recorded as Payroll Support Program deferred credit on our balance sheet. We expect to recognize the remainder of the grant income from the Payroll Support Program as a Special charge (credit) during the fourth quarter of 2020 as the salaries and wages the grant is intended to offset are incurred.
They ALSO have deferred credits which they will use in the 3rd quarter. Delta’s deferral just happens to be larger.
Delta reported its financial results before United, as is usually the case.
no one is ignoring your “savings” comments. The reason Delta has Cares act “savings” is simple: they chose not to use them to fund 100% of salaries. Of course they have savings. the Cares Act funding was based on 100% of salaries from last year. Of course there are leftover funds when Ed chose to not fund current salaries at 100% since April… You’re simply choosing to misdirect the topic over and over. The issue is, during the Cares act funding timeframe, Delta chose to not fund salaries at 100%. It was a choice. This nonsense of “United did it after the Act passed” is just that, nonsense. Delta could’ve easily reversed course and chosen to fund their employees at 100% as their major competitors did.
They chose not to and chose to stockpile cash. That’s legal. But it’s worth pointing out that they chose cash stockpiles well above any competitor over funding their people’s salaries. The federal funding was for employee salaries. Delta chose to not use it for that.
Once again, the actual facts are that Delta and United BOTH did not use all of their CARES Act money for the 2nd and 3rd quarter and are carrying it to the 4th quarter. I am still struggling to understand how what Delta did was wrong but it was ok for United to do it? Or did you not know and didn’t bother to find out that Delta and United actually used the same strategy?
The CARES Act DID NOT fund 100% of salaries for ANY airline. And part of the money was in the form of loans, not grants.
seatback,
some analysts have said that American would need to have at least $7 billion in funding for debtor in possession financing in order to enter chapter 11. You can calculate the cash burn and available cash from the charts CF posted to estimate when you think AA needs to either pull the trigger on a chapter 11 filing or make sure they have enough cash to get through the next phase.
Historically, US airlines file for bankruptcy in the fall when cash quits coming in from the summer. These are hardly normal times but it is doubtful that any airline can sustain cash burn much into 2021.
Really? United reduced gate agents, ramp agents, flight attendants, reservation agents, and mechanic salaries by 25% in the third quarter or since April?
No. They didn’t. But you know that. Delta did. Stop trying to distort what United actually did to sell your own distorted Delta-PR narrative of the facts.
Delta was alone in scale among the big 4 airlines by not using federal funds intended for 100% payroll coverage for non-payroll purposes.
I am sorry but what United and Delta told their shareholders and filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission says they used the same strategy.
Delta just simply managed to reduce costs a little more than United and saved more money for application in the 4th quarter – but they are both using varying degrees of the same strategy.
I truly don’t understand why there are still people that can’t accept that Delta didn’t do anything any different from what United did in one case and what JetBlue did in the other.
And nice job completing ignoring how you love to berate others for not using their real name while ignoring your long history (and potentially current status) of doing the same.
Pretty sure this is him. He has mentioned before that he writes for the “financial sector” or something along those lines. No need to really read the articles though, as his posts here have the same feel. Why I said he has a vested interest in DL being viewed favorably, no matter what. https://seekingalpha.com/author/tim-dunn#regular_articles
Unfortunately Tim Dunn has ruined the comments section and CF has decided to be hands off. I now read the comments section skipping anything written by Tim Dunn.
This is correct. I am hands off unless it involves a personal attack or it’s unrelated spam. While tone can get heated, quite frankly there are more personal attacks on Tim Dunn than the other way around. Yes, Tim tends to support Delta in nearly everything he writes, and I understand some of you think it can be repetitive. But to that I ask… so what? If it’s as transparent as everyone thinks it is, then it’s not worth a response, nor is it worth getting worked up about. I can understand the desire to correct false or misleading information, and you’re welcome to do that all day long if you’d like. I used to do that in the comments back when volume was lower, but I’ve learned that much of the time it’s just not worth it.
If anyone wants to bring up more on this topic, email me at cf at crankyflier.com and I’m happy to discuss.
As a business owner, I’m fascinated by the focus on how what management has done is incorrect. The fact is there are only bad options in a pandemic. Customers have generally stopped traveling, especially the high-paying customers. The country decided to cover every airline workers’ salary up to $100,000. How about a “thank you” from the peanut gallery? Absent CARES, many/most/all the employees would be terminated, at least at one or two of the airlines with the fastest cash-burn rates.
To the soon-to-be-retired, remember that the rest of us have to pay off the debts that are accumulating because of CARES and other legislation, so essentially, you all are being paid today from money that the rest of us have to fund in future years. Again, “thank you” is the right response.
This isn’t to say the above is easy for anyone. But, griping that some people should have lost their positions based on seniority is a really stinky response during a pandemic that impacts everyone in some ways. Time to be a better human.
The best option is for everyone to give something – just putting 20-25% of the people on the bread line encourages big breaks in society. That’s not good for anyone.
So what’s the trigger number for AA to consider filing bankruptcy? The more money they have at the time of filing, the better off they are, right?
Seatback – I’m not sure that any of us know that for sure. Having more money can help with a pre-packaged bankruptcy if that’s the plan, but there is a lot at risk by filing for Chapter 11. So I wouldn’t expect it any time soon.