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.
Delta has virtually no debt compared to AAL and UCAL...
5 billion by the end of the year, Anderson has done a lot to avoid the financial pitfalls that AAL, and UCAL will face in the coming years if they can not stay ahead of any economic down falls. Just raising fuel prices will cause debt service to errode profits, that is when the strongest and healthiest will shoot to the front and drunk dougie will lose a few pennies....