American also has an estimated $10 billion in unencumbered assets, including $2 billion in spare aircraft parts, $5 billion in airport slots, $1.8 billion in A/R and $1.2 billion in real estate. In total, that means that the carrier has access to at least $17.4 billion worth of liquidity before transactions.
the author needs to realize you don't "have" anything until you exchange it for cash. I doubt anybody will need a bunch of airport slots or real estate anytime soon. my backyard pool is paid for and "unencumbered" not attached to my mortgage. So what. I will never sell the pool only, to raise cash.
Also, Eastern burned the furniture to keep the house warm, and it did not work out for them. Who are the selling the parts to ? Delta and United do not need any parts. European airlines are broke. Frontier, Spirit are flying a new fleet. So how is AA converting the "value" of parts into cold cash ?
they aren't.
bad article