As the 2016 Republic bankruptcy shows:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/trave...able/81035522/

the whole bankruptcy process is just one more management mechanism to manage the company. They don’t even have to be losing money to do it.

But I do think the Big Three got caught with the wrong business model for this recovery and AA in particular was overextended with debt. AA declaring bankruptcy is almost a given now and that forcing Delta and UA to follow suit to avoid AA having an advantage over them after the recovery is a very real possibility.