That would be over $20 billion for a company like Delta. That's a decade of free cashflow just saved. No reinvestment in the business, no return to shareholders, none of that. Just saving every dollar for a decade.
I think a lot of people just don't understand the math here.
There are dozens of financial instruments they could have used to hedge their position without having to save decades of cashflow. That's what those instruments are ostensibly for. At the scale of companies like airlines that have a history of bailouts, the OTC markets offer plenty of options (no pun intended) with premiums a tiny fraction of $20 billion.
But they still have to pay to park those planes, continue to pay lease payments, continue to pay maintenance on those planes, continue to pay for landing and gate spots at all the airports they serve globablly... essentially the only costs that go away are labor that they've put on unpaid furlough, and fuel costs, which if they've hedged, they're essentially paying for anyway.
Airlines aren't an SaaS business where you just scale down AWS and youre good.
10 years yield is not much right now. They won't be beating inflation. And if they were in stocks they'd be eating a 25-50% haircut when they needed the money
I think a lot of people just don't understand the math here.