Maybe that will give you better chances of survival but think about it from an airlines perspective. Is it rational to basically ignore shareholders to hold res

Maybe that will give you better chances of survival but think about it from an airlines perspective. Is it rational to basically ignore shareholders to hold reserves in case of a black swan that would cut your entire cashflow in the hope of surviving a few months at best? You're basically giving no return on investment to your shareholders, which could have made use of the money in a more productive way than just parking it in cash/equivalents, so that they get the privilege of seeing that money burnt down at a phenomenal rate if that improbable worst case scenario happens? And all of that while investing in a riskier industry? Again, the investors took a risk and should not be bailed out. But the buybacks and the lack of reserves make sense. You can't take a risk without expectation of return only to get an extremely risky solution (that may or may not save half of your equity value) to an improbable event.