Originally Posted by
rickair7777
IMO the covid subsidies were a rare example of where the .gov SHOULD meddle in the economy... the long-term economic consequences of allowing the airlines to liquidate and/or shrink by 50% would have been frankly catastrophic. It would have taken several years to rebuild capacity and even then the gov would probably have had to help.
Fair to other sectors? No. But bartenders, baristas and small business are a lot easier and quicker to recover than airlines.
This is a bit dramatic, isn’t it? 9/11 was horrible for the industry. Did SWA shrink 50% in size over the next 5 years? Players get shuffled around. That’s the price of the decisions the company makes.
And bankruptcies are not all the same. You don’t sell the kitchen sink. You restructure.
Painful? Yes. But the market would be just fine. The airplanes aren’t burned to ashes. Another Indigo Partners would buy those planes for cheap and create a new competitor. Bad for our collective careers? Yes. Better for the consumer, American tax payer, and our industry ten years down the line? I think that is also a yes.