This is not true. Although none of the big 3 could pull this off, ALK, JetBlue, LUV all could. Alaska actually has a plan if things get significantly worse to do just that. At current or slightly better revenue trends Alaska could furlough 40-45% of its company and idle for a very longtime. Making a little or nothing, waiting out the storm, plenty of cash to sustain, flying 30% of the fleet.

I am confident it will not come to this though.

I don’t live in the land of rainbows and unicorns so when it comes to air travel this is the worst crisis we have ever faced however, as an eternal optimist, I try to find the light at the end of the tunnel to help balance the never ending doom and gloom so, I’ll take any positive trend, green graphs, and any possibility of solvency all day every day. Nevertheless, I am also a realist and I am fully aware of the difficult long road ahead. My post wasn’t meant to treat pilots as children and shield them from bad news. My post was simply there to share a little glimmer of positive trends among the apocalyptic madness we live in. In hindsight, next time I’ll just quote from the article with my own explanations for better discussions...lesson learned.

In regards to how I see the forecasts for the future of the industry, I see lots of coulds, mights, ifs, and maybes. Just like hurricanes forecasts, we have a general picture of what’s ahead yet, the final most accurate predictions don’t become relatively accurate until right before the storm hits. To use your own words from a previous post, “This is different and changes daily”. The way I see it, due to the lack of previous data and the constantly changing landscape, we have to let this play out and wait for the economy to fully open, (while waiting for a possible second wave of infections), to truly assess and more accurately predict the upcoming damages but, and call me naive, these little unexpected trends give me some hope for a better and less damaging outcome. Again, the articles backfire on me and it is all my fault. When it comes to the airline industry I have learned not to deal in absolutes. Experts have been wrong in the past and early predictions usually change for better or worse as time goes on. Only time will tell. On a personal note, when it comes to the airlines you mentioned and their predictions, I remain skeptical of those negotiating contracts pre-Covid and the CEOs that made millions on stock buy backs. At this point, as I previously stated, I am hoping for the best while preparing for the worst.

Shyguy I agree we will have a second wave of infections here in the US but I don’t know if another shutdown will happen under our political climate. I believe the current administration will keep the economy open regardless and we’ll just power through.

To better days... cheers

Amen......🍻

Shelter in Place/Lock Down strategy is gradually being shelved.

New strategy is simply "Harm Reduction" whereby we open up the country, while at the same time observe best practices to minimize the likelihood of infection as we are out n about.

An effective treatment would also solve this.

Remdesivir has been clinically proven as an effective treatment by NIH, but that gets very little attention these days....

Also the NYU study a few weeks ago found the hydroxychloriquine/zinc/azithromycin cocktail showed efficacy in preventing hospitalized patients from going to ICU. That one needs more study (NIH actually started one last week), but it verifies a treatment protocol used around the country for over two months now with “anecdotal” positive results.

Any chance of this still happening?

Your 385 number sounds like a reasonable estimate, how do you see that divided up between the bases?

Bases don’t matter, however many furloughs occur they start at the bottom of the list and go up, base and equipment is irrelevant.