Well, in fairness, WN's CEO was talking about WN, not its competitors. But context is important.. first and foremost, this is the same CEO engaged in difficult labor negotiations. Posturing about how bad things are (which, in fairness, things ARE terrible in the industry) is part of that negotiation because WN is trying to win concessions from the unions. In addition, this is a new position for WN: they've never really lost money before. Compare that to Delta (and the other legacies for that matter) where significant chunks of senior leaders were around in the dark days of bankruptcy era.

Either way, it's a meaningless statement. It has no meaning to the SEC - "the ship is taking on water" is not a forward looking financial statement. It's at best a reiteration of the obvious: Southwest (and all airlines outside of China where the pandemic is under control) are losing money right now. But Southwest especially (beyond even Delta) is best positioned to survive this, both because they are less reliant than Delta and the legacies on business travel and their (at least formerly) impenetrable balance sheet. The ship may be taking on water, but Southwest has a lot of watertight compartments to keep the ship from sinking. Given the extremely positive vaccine news, Southwest can probably go back to trying to solve their more long-term structural business issue: how to compete in the middle with ULCCs competing from below and the legacies competing with them from above.

To loop back to the topic, all else considered, I just don't see Delta picking up white tails (or any MAXes right now). Delta is just too dependent on business travel to be bullish about future capacity needs. While the leisure market will likely recover strongly (if not overshoot.. remote work means more opportunities to work wherever), the big question on every non-ULCC's mind is where business travel is going to land. And until there is more clarity post-vaccine, I don't see an airline like Delta making that move. I could easily see an ULCC with a stronger balance sheet doing it, because I think the demand return for that segment has a clearer and more predictable trajectory.