Cash burn ALWAYS matters. And what may matter even more is the TYPE of flying that comes back first. If international flying doesn’t come back fairly quickly, UA, DL, and AA are ALL stuck with ownership or lease costs on very expensive aircraft designed and optimized for that purpose that compete far less well on domestic compared to the single type LC/ULCC airlines.

And that is cash burn even if you leave them parked. AA spent $333 million in debt service alone in the third quarter, an amount that can only rise as their bonds come due and need to be financed at higher rates. Bonds coming due were financed at rates of 2.5 to 3.5%. Last bonds AA sold had a coupon of 11.75% and still didn’t sell at par, resulting in AA paying 12% interest on the money.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...l-to-2-billion

Refinancing expiring bonds at that sort of rate gets ugly quickly.

While any decent accountant can engineer a bankruptcy it’s the secured bond holders that wield the biggest stick once the bankruptcy happens.