Clearly the most shocking news in the industry this week was the fact that Frontier Airlines did not take the opportunity to get rid of its Airbus A318s as part of its bankruptcy reorganization.

The airline this week reaffirmed the leases on all of its aircraft. All of them. That’s right. Every single one of them.

As most of you know, when an airline files for Chapter 11 protection, the airline is allowed to suspend the payment of any aircraft leases or contracts for a period of 60 days.

At that point, the airline has to make a decision on which aircraft it wants to keep, and which aircraft it wants to get rid of.

Surprising to me, and a lot of other industry observers, Frontier did not take this opportunity to get rid of any aircraft. I would have bet money that they were going to take this opportunity to ditch the A318s.

The airline owns 22 of its Airbus aircraft and leases 38. The airline also flies 10 Bombardier Q-400s under its Lynx brand. The airline owns five of those aircraft and five are leased.