> If you buy a plane ticket for the future, in a bankruptcy, you become an unsecured creditor of the airline.

Unless you pay for it with a credit or debit card, which probably accounts for pretty much every ticket sold in the US.

In other words, this is simply not true. The airline's acquiring bank bears the bulk of the risk for almost all flights (except for those purchased extremely far out, i.e. much more than a year, and some other edge cases).

Even worse, you can get caught with no return flight. In late 2001, I was flying back home to Dallas from Prague, connecting in Brussels. And the airline I was on, Sabena, declared bankruptcy the very day of the flights.

I got lucky, if your flight left before 8am you were rebooked on a different airline. After 8? You were out of luck and on your own. My flight had been scheduled for 7:50.

> If you buy a plane ticket for the future, in a bankruptcy, you become an unsecured creditor of the airline

Also, miles, vouchers, credits, et cetera.