Originally Posted by
GrayAnderson
Do consider that as yet, the only failures... have been two regional/contract carriers engaging in orderly shutdowns that were possibly impending (TSA and Connect) and Flybe (which was introuble even before the virus). There will be more, but so far nothing disorderly outside of Europe (which has real problems with this sort of thing).
Trans States was due to cease operating at EOY anyway; coronavirus accelerated events. Compass is a surprise. All the other regionals are at varying non-trivial degrees of risk.
As for mainline carriers, I think the most likely action will be desperation mergers in the B-tier to achieve economies of scale: AS+B6, F9+NK+SY, etc. The VLCCs are very profitable in normal times but also depend on discretionary travel and pulling people out of their cars. They do not compete with AA/UA/DL so much as driving, Greyhound, or staying home. It will be interesting to see how they survive 6-12 months of this situation.