I failed to read about the author before posting that, I had assumed it was a professional journalist. He makes the classic mistake of equating "book value" with this new reality. Spare parts, there's thousands of spare parts sitting on taxiways all over the place. Slots, who needs em? Ditto for real estate. With all the bad news I jumped on this seemingly good news article without looking at it closely enough.
I posted an article about credit default swaps. AA is at 54%, i.e. the bond holder has to pay $54 for every $100 of AA bonds they want to insure against loss. Several other airlines are less than 10%, the 2nd highest was 24% I think. Barring further Gov intervention I think BK is inevitable for American. I'm surprised how progressive they're being on offering packages to the pilot group, I'm a little bit suspicious they're going to try to take it all away in Chapter 11.
I'm no longer affected since I took early retirement (PBGC) upon recall to USAirways in 2007, only thing I'd lose is non-rev which I've only used once in 3 years anyway. I'm on Loss of Medical from my post-USAirways job for another 5 years so short of the major insurance company underwriter going belly up I should be fine. But I have friends from my 1989 USAir class who are still at AA. Some of them could be downgraded in BK. One of them had his son get hired at AA in the past year, the kid is still in his 20's. I remember thinking about how he's got it made. Now he'll probably be out of a job.