Hello everyone! It’s that time again. This week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.
Fourth quarter and year-end earnings reports began to roll out this week, as Delta Air Lines reported on Tuesday and US Airways reported record breaking results on Wednesday.
The two airlines continue to lead the major U.S. airlines in any number of financial metrics. Looking forward, both airlines also gave analysts good guidance for 1Q13.
As we usually do, we will have full earnings call reviews of US Airways and Delta Air Lines in next week’s issue. We will also cover the results from Southwest Airlines and United Airlines — both of whom are on tap for tomorrow.
In other news, we update subscribers on the latest news concerning the battery problems with the Boeing 787 that have kept all of the aircraft grounded. The NTSB is scheduled to hold a press conference Thursday, but the latest news late Wednesday is that there was damage to all of the cells in the battery that caught fire on the JAL aircraft when it was parked in Boston.
Boeing’s not happy.
But neither are Boeing’s customers.
Meanwhile those planes aren’t going anywhere until the reason for the problems are found and the problems are solved.
American Airlines? Oh, yes. American decided to forge ahead and roll-out a new livery and branding effort last week. I talk a great deal this week both about what it says that management at the airline decided to do this — at this time. And how god awful the new design is. Or as the article in Vanity Fair titled its story on the new livery, “Something Lousy in the Air: Analyzing American Airlines‘ Disastrous Redesign.”
Needless to say, the airline failed on all fronts.
We also update you on our latest merger timetable — and I remind all of the stakeholders in this bankruptcy of what will happen if the current management team at the airline manages to kill a merger in some form or fashion. But I am not the only one sounding this warning. So did a Wall Street analyst last week.
All this and more in this week’s edition of PlaneBusiness Banter.