Originally Posted by
encore
Whats even scarier is what is being done with these profits.
What Does American Airlines Group's $2 Billion Buyback Mean for Shareholders?
This can turn an amazingly successful airline into a bankrupt one overnight if the economy turns around or the market tanks.
The amount of debt airlines have, with all these orders, is astonishing. Too bad the bosses are not paying it down with these profits while time is good and instead thinking about their own stock options and the next quarterly results.
They're milking everything they can out of the good times but the majors are going to be in a world of hurt when things go south. And they always do.
They can turn off a stock buyback. The debt is what people should be concerned with. DAL has paid down mountains of debt. AAL has not as far as I can tell, and the leverage they are undertaking is a mystery to me, but it sure doesn't seem to bother Wall Street. So far.
Debt is slavery, especially for you and me.