Loyalty programs have turned out to be highly profitable for airlines, as for some, they generate more cash flow than flight operations. Indeed, we believe that without a loyalty program, certain major U.S. airlines' earnings would be decidedly weaker in the current economic environment. We discuss how these loyalty programs work, their resiliency in tough times while other airline assets remain idle, how airlines generate financing from these programs by securitizing future loyalty revenue streams (and by proxy, the different types of ABS securitizations), and just how they've become core financial assets in general.

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