Originally Posted by
404yxl
He was joking, but it doesn't really matter if RAH owns the planes or not. If they can't staff their airline, they will lose payments from their mainline partners and won't be able to pay their payments on the planes. Look up what happened to Mesa in 2009.
When it comes to owning airplanes, you are responsible for their payments. When you don't sell the tickets, you are dependent on your mainline partners paying you, so you can pay the lessor. If you fail to staff your airline to meet appropriate CPA requirements, your mainline partners can withhold payments, forcing you to declare bankruptcy or allowing them to hand the airplanes over to someone else.
Right, but couldn't RAH just lease the planes or sell them off to whoever they want? Similar to how you can sell a car prior to paying it off, the purchaser would pick up payments.
Delta doesn't just have the ability to give the planes to who they want, unless they took over the payments.