Originally Posted by
BunkerF16
The debt is not nearly the obstacle some are touting it to be. JB owns most of their assets outright. If United wants into JFK in a significant way, this partnership will not stop at this move.
Not according to the financial statement they filed with the SEC.
Jetblue has $17B in total assets but $4B of that is either cash, short term investment or receivables. So really they have about $13B in "Assets" (planes, equipment, etc) They have $8B in long term debt (what we've been talking about) $4.1B in Current Liabilities and another $1.6B in Other Liabilities. $17B of total assets and around $13B of debt load, so they don't really "Own most of their assets outright".
The almost $4B of cash and short term investments is very nice, especially compared to Spirit and Frontier right now. But their retained earnings and shareholder equity is basically the cash and investments. Everything else is basically equal to the debt load, so no actual "paid off assets".
United is roughly in the same boat, just a rapidly improving trajectory is the only difference.