Nonsense. AA's pension is underfunded by close to $5B (UA over $6B), over 3 times its market cap (!!!!) and "meeting pension obligations for the year" is like paying the minimum balance on a credit card (although without direct interest charge liabilities) with a huge balance.

Missing a year's payment is a drop in the bucket compared to how underfunded they are and doesn't make current payouts for pensions any less likely. If I was working for AA or UA, I wouldn't be counting on either airline being good for my pension down the line with that kind of underfunding.

The fact that they have got the government lowering the minimums for pension funding and are just making the minimum payments says nothing about the financial viability of their pension funds.