[Retric]

Airlines failure does not destroy the physical aircraft, or the skilled workforce. So, economically they can be restarted with minimal issues. Longer term the US so far from capital constrained and letting less efficient airlines fail is likely the best policy.

[kakwa_]

Well, yes and no.

For the assets, such as the physical aircraft, if left unattended for long, they will slowly degrade.

And if a company fails, it's not that easy to recreate the same one from scratch, all the organizational structures of the company, the partnerships, the contracts with suppliers, etc, need to be reestablished. Not impossible, but at the same time, not that easy.

And it's only seeing it from the narrow view of one company failing. If the whole economy has a significant portion of companies failing, it will mess-up things a lot more.

[Retric]

While we are talking about deprecating assets, they can last a long time. New US carriers would not be limited to purchasing the old US carriers aircraft. Delta’s 747 for example are 26 years old on average, but they might easily be sold globally, with a new airline picking a fleet on the cheap from some other country’s failed airlines. Thus the assets are not really that critical a consideration.

IMO, if US airlines can’t raise enough capital to handle a short therm disruption that’s a sign the markets think letting them fail is more efficient. Further, politics is unlikely to be making a more efficient choice than industry experts. Finally, if we are talking a multi year disruption airlines seem like a very low priority.