Which airlines are the most solvent? Which are the least solvent?

Question

The reason I'm asking is that I want to build up my frequent flyer miles on the airlines that are least likely to go into bankruptcy.

Answer 1

With all of the airlines on shaky ground in general, and with it taking a lot of flying to actually start getting rewards, it's pretty hard to predict a best bet--- you need usually 25,000 miles or 30 segments in a year to even begin to qualify for upgrades on most airlines, and you won't get a free ticket till somewhere between 20,000-50,000 miles on most major airlines. Unless you're planning on doing some hard-core travel, it's going to be a long time till you see any rewards, and an airline that is failing now may be more stable by then (just like the solvent ones may be in trouble again by then). And since the trend lately is that an airline headed for or actually going through a bankruptcy has merged with another airline, it's a pretty safe bet that by the time you have enough miles to do anything with them, the whole financial picture of your airline might be totally different. Worse comes to worst, once you obtain status you can "shop" your miles and status to other carriers; if you pick Delta and hit status, you can give up your Delta loyalty, call United, and join their program at the same level you had with Delta. They won't even talk to you till you have preferred status, though, which is that magic 25,000 miles in a year level.

Pick the airline that has the frequent flyer plan, schedule and cities that works best for you; be very careful of trying to earn miles by credit card purchases as the interest rates are usually on the high side and it's much harder to redeem those than miles you actually earn by flying.

That said... USAir and JetBlue are probably the most solvent right now, and Northwest and Delta are probably the least.