United Airlines 177.35
Allegiant Airlines 166.48
Spirit Airlines 157.34
Hawaiian Airlines 125.92
Delta Airlines 117.17
Alaska Airlines 74.28
JetBlue 65.68
Southwest Airlines 40.70
The Average Debt-To-Equity Ratio of Airline Companies

You left this tidbit out:

did not leave it out that is why there is a link to the article

Regarding this list, who has the best business model to weather this storm.

If AA's D/E is negative, their liabilities are greater than their assets.

EQUITY = ASSETS - LIABILITIES

Debt/Equity Ratio Investopedia

Does anyone know if that's really the case or a result of financial wizardry?

D/E is one metric out of...hundreds? Not many here are qualified to answer that.

I would suspect that all of these DEs are pulled directly from the ballance sheets; each one being acredited under the GAAP.

However each company does have discretion to fudge it a little bit.... Financial analysts know this so will place balance sheets along side each other and while reading the notes adjust them so they all read the same thing..... Then they will pull out a ratio.....which can actually be compared

Theae ratios are face value ratios and are probably correct. That being said you cant go off one ratio to get an idea of a company's health. Right now you probably want to look at Free cash flow to debt ratios (from memory the quick ratio or debt servicing ratio....) Even then you wont get an idea of whats happening because all the fin statements are six months old.

The DE ratio are out because when the music stops all the assets (revenue generating quantum) become liabilities (things that dont generate revenue... But need to be serviced). So you might say.....'oh but they have lots of assets' (planes) when in times like this it means they just have a lot more stuff sitting around that needs to be serviced.

So.... With all that said.... The DE is useless.

yup. The OP is loving to troll doom and gloom on other threads, so I would pay as much attention to this as I do other trivial things.

Yup, right now it's all about cash flow...

Is this a descent indicator or how well the airline will survey this mess?? I really have no idea.