Buying treasury stock is what happens when you're undervalued in the market, but don't have many expansion opportunities. They don't want to raise capital becau

Buying treasury stock is what happens when you're undervalued in the market, but don't have many expansion opportunities. They don't want to raise capital because they don't think the demand exists for more airports, more supply: right now they're trying to compete on price, driving costs down. The airlines are not in a growth phase, raising capital seems incredibly silly. They're also making the calculation that the people are leaving the market and selling under value. This makes sense. The market is low right now because of COVID-19, people need liquidity to handle underemployment and low-spending. Profits are down and money isn't coming in, and treasury stock is an important counter-balancing force on a receding market. Airlines don't see any major opportunity to make money off of new infrastructure, so they're injecting that money back into the economy. A pet peeve of mine, but you lump together investors and executives together as if having money in the financial markets is something reserved for the elites, and not inherent in every pension and 401(k) plan.