Originally Posted by
MinRest
We will absolutely make money this year.
You need to add context to the finances in order for it to make sense. AAL has been horrifically run in the past and has always carried high amounts of debt. They have some aging fleets and have been mounting debt for years instead of clearing it. AS on the other hand, has bought an airline that was losing money and doesn't carry lots of debt. Our warchest is a much larger percentage-wise than AAL.
AAL is 34.7 BILLION dollars in debt. Clapping that they made a Q1 profit is like a Waffle House worker saying they made money because they got their paycheck, while carrying 25k in credit card debt...
The glass houses remark was spot on. AAL produced 14.9B in revenue—Alaska 3.3B. Alaska holds 7B in debt and nearly matches AALs revenue to debt ratio.
Alaska held .68B at the end of 2015. 10 years later after 2 acquisitions (something American also went through) you’ve 10X your total debt—.68B to 6.9B.
FYI at the end of 2021 AAL held 46B in debt with a mainline fleet of 865 mainline A/C. Today 35B with a total fleet of 1,025. That equates to a 30% reduction in debt while simultaneously growing the total fleet by 20%.
Also, both United and Delta have been aggressively growing in the PNW by adding more available seats in SEA/SFO—Alaska’s highest revenue producing hubs. I wouldn’t be surprised if Alaska eventually found themselves in the same position as JetBlue.