A big pile of cash will keep the big airlines from that same fate, for now.
It's not that the big carriers aren't buffeted by the same forces that shut down ATA on Thursday and Aloha on Tuesday. Champion Air, a Minnesota-based charter airline, will stop flying by May 31.
But the nation's biggest airlines have hoarded some $19 billion in cash as of the end of 2007, according to a tally by Calyon Securities analyst Ray Neidl. Even if fuel stays at today's levels and revenue drops 2 percent, they would still have $14.7 billion in cash at the end of 2009, under Neidl's estimate.
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