PlaneBusiness Banter Now Posted

Good evening everyone. This week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

Yes, it’s a Friday night edition this week. I think we’ll probably have another one published on Friday next week as well. Does screw up the Market Review section. I ended up putting charts and graphs in for both last week and this week. I trust subscribers can figure it all out! Just a necessary evil when yours truly is traipsing about the countryside.

This week it was Orlando and the 2013 ISTAT Americas conference.

Next week I’m off to San Diego and a Travelport Executive Client Retreat.

The next week? New York.

That’s as far as I’m going out on the calendar. But April is pretty nutty as well.

As I said, this week I was in Orlando at the ISTAT Americas Conference. For those of you who are not familiar with the organization, this is the conference you attend if you lease, sell, buy, maintain, refurb, convert, or part out an aircraft. Or you provide the financing to do any of the above.

Was a great conference as always. For those of you who have never attended, I like to think of it as the equivalent of the Paris Air Show. Only on U.S. soil. No planes underfoot or above you, but just as many deals being transacted in the rooms around the main event.

We talk about our main takeaway from the conference this week, as well as a whole lot of other things including the record breaking loss Virgin Atlantic seems poised to report for its fiscal year ending Feb. 28th.

We also talk about the TSA’s plan to allow certain knives, along with other odd things, onboard aircraft. Both Delta CEO Richard Anderson and US Airways CEO Doug Parker have come out against the proposed changes, as have most airline employee union groups. American also sent a letter this week in which it voices its displeasure with the proposed changes.

I say “most” union groups because there is on big exception — the Air Line Pilots Association says they support the changes.

The FAA gave Boeing the okay to begin “retrofitting” its 787s this week with new batteries, a new compartment to put them in, and a special vent to make sure any fumes or smoke can be removed from the inside of the cockpit.

PBB readers know where I am on this: I still say the cause of the problem has not been found, and that this is not the end of the electrical issues on the aircraft.

It’s been a great two weeks for airline stocks — and I’ll tell you why bankrupt shares of AMR have moved up sharply the last two weeks.

All this, and much, much more in this week’s edition of PlaneBusiness Banter.