PlaneBuzz

Good evening everyone! This week's huge mega-earnings issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. This week we take an in-depth look at the recent earnings results and the earnings calls from Delta Air Lines, US Airways, Alaska Air Group, JetBlue, and United Continental Holdings.

But there's more.

Republic Holdings announced last week that Frontier Airlines was getting a new executive team and -- that the airline was going to become an ULCC.

You know what that is don't you?

Ultra low cost carrier. Think Spirit. Or Ryanair.

Not sure what all the animals are going to think about this. Not quite sure what we think about it yet -- as details are slim. But it appears that either Frontier will be rebranded and operated as a ULCC. Or it looks like it will be rebranded and then sold as a ULCC.

Heading up the new operation is none other than Dave Siegel. Yes, the same Dave Siegel who headed up the old US Airways during the Dark Period. Joining him is the former head of planning and pricing at Allegiant -- Robert Ashcroft as SVP Finance. Daniel Shurz, meanwhile, was promoted to SVP Commercial.

Tomorrow employees and union leaders will finally hear from American Airlines -- as the airline is slated to roll out its proposed labor contract modifications per section 1113 of the U.S. bankruptcy code. Meanwhile we'll be interested to more hear details of the airline's proposed restructuring plan.

It's going to be one difficult day for American employees.

Meanwhile the head of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Benefit Corp., the government agency that would be forced to take over the administration of employee pensions if the airline walks away from them continued his very public criticism of the airline Tuesday.

The PBGC also placed liens against assets of American on Tuesday. The agency said that it filed over 70 liens for a total of $91.7 million, on behalf of the four pension plans the airline currently has. This comes after American only paid $6.5 million of the roughly $100 million that was due earlier in the month. The airline said that it had to conserve its cash.

We'll find out more tomorrow on where the pension issue is headed. But one thing's for sure -- this PBGC is not the same as the one United Airlines rolled over when it went through its bankruptcy. Josh Gotbaum, the director of the PBGC, is not going to go down without a fight.

But the big story this week in PlaneBusiness Banter is earnings -- lots and lots and lots of earnings. This week's issue clocks in at over 150 pages as we take an in-depth look at the five airlines that reported in last week. Which airline do we think reported the strongest earnings for the fourth quarter? Delta Air Lines. And I tell subscribers why.

Also, those reports last Friday about how Delta was now possibly looking at a deal for US Airways? We give you our take on those reports and why they shouldn't surprise anyone. Who is going to do what to whom and why? We'll break down a number of the possible scenarios.

All this and a whole lot more. Now. In this week's PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 2:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Good evening everyone.

This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. This week we're talking a lot about the two airlines that call Dallas-Ft.Worth home -- American Airlines and Southwest Airlines.

Last week Southwest Airlines rolled out its fourth quarter earnings results -- making the airline the first to report for the quarter. Overall the airline posted numbers that were just a bit better than expected, although the "noise" from the airline's merger with AirTran will continue into 2012. The airline also updated its list of AirTran cities it is keeping and those it is putting on the "Don't fly there no mo" list.

Were there any surprises here? Yep. On both sides.

Meanwhile, the bankruptcy continues at American Airlines. Monday Human Resources SVP Jeff Brundage sent out a letter to employees trying to reassure them that even if their pensions were terminated or frozen, they would still get almost the same payment from the PGBC. Only problem -- that is not true if you are a pilot. Or a member of upper management. Why? The pension payouts for those two groups are higher -- and the payouts would exceed the maximum levels allowed by the PBGC.

Brundage's letter was issued, I believe, as a result of the airline's failure to pay the roughly $100 million it was scheduled to pay into its pension plans last week. News of the airline's minimal payment it did make was not received well with labor leaders of the airline's employee groups. The move, coupled with the publicly vocal sparring between the airline and PBGC over the last several weeks succeeded in raising the angst level of employees considerably.

Brundage's letter was followed by a missive to the troops from CEO Tom Horton. But all Horton's note said was that the airline was going to make changes in its executive ranks, its management "layers" and that it was going to be the airline it used to be -- again.

Again -- no details.

Meanwhile, out in Phoenix, US Airways' President Scott Kirby and his revenue management team are hard at work putting together a network restructuring plan for American Airlines. Or so said a report in Bloomberg last week.

Say what?

Let's just say the obvious!

Of course US Airways' President Scott Kirby has his minions working on a plan that will increase American's revenue performance.

We may not get to hear the details until much later in the year -- after American has had its chance to impress the bankruptcy court and the unsecured creditor's committee with its restructuring plan. But I assure you -- yes, US Airways is working on a proposal.

Oh my gosh. And this is just the start of this week's issue.

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

Posted by Holly at 2:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Good evening everyone.

We have a busy week this week in PlaneBusiness Banter. We are talking about Southwest Airlines and its new seating configuration on its 737-700s, we're talking about WestJet's plans to start flying turboprops, we take a look at why one analyst downgraded JetBlue to a "sell" rating this last week, we talk about what a great week the airline sector enjoyed last week, and, oh yes, we talk a lot about American Airlines. And Delta Air Lines. And US Airways.

I'll tell you why and how Delta Air Lines could successfully bid on, and be allowed to purchase, a piece of AMR. (Can we say...carve outs?)

And oh yes, then there is the rest of the sector. And the DOT Airline Consumer Travel Report for November, and energy prices for the week. And airline stocks. And more.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 3:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. It's time once again to jump into the fray. Our Holiday Hiatus is over. Time to close out the story on 2011 and start the story of 2012.

The first issue of PlaneBusiness Banter for 2012 is now posted.

This week we talk a lot about airline stocks. We look at how they performed for the last week, the last month, the last quarter and the last year.

The good news? The sector posted a huge fourth quarter. Not so good news -- yearly stock performance numbers were horrible. But hey, the quarterly numbers are much more important.

In addition, contrary to a number of wire service and financial news site headlined "end of year" airline stock stories that are floating about the Internet -- we tell you which airline stock really posted the best return to investors in 2011.

And no, it's not Alaska Air Group -- as many stories say was the case.

We also update subscribers this week on the American Airlines bankruptcy. The airline is starting to announce route changes, and has announced some fleet news. But, as Deutsche Bank analyst Michael Linenberg reminded investors in a note last week, timing for the airline's Section 1110 filing the end of this month means that we should hear a lot more from the airline in the next 2 1/2 weeks concerning which aircraft the airline wants to keep, which ones it wants to walk away from, and which ones it wants to renegotiate with lessors.

On the traffic front, December RASM estimates from those airlines that supply such things are coming in mixed. We tell you who has reported better than expected RASM performance, and who has disappointed.

Following up on traffic -- a reminder. Airline earnings reports for the fourth quarter and year-end will begin to roll out in a little over a week.

Both JAL and Hong Kong Airlines are talking about potential IPOs in 2012, while Lufthansa was apparently just pulling Virgin Atlantic's strings over bmi. The German airline finalized a deal with IAG, parent of British Airways for the airline, er, slots over the Christmas holiday. Not surprisingly Sir Richard says he is going to continue the fight to keep BA from getting its hands on bmi's slots.

Unfortunately I don't think his screams are going to matter to UK regulators.

On this side of the Atlantic, flight attendants for AirTran and Southwest announced a seniority agreement right before Christmas -- good news for the airline.

Did Boeing meet its 2011 delivery goal? No.

How many more aircraft did Airbus deliver in 2011 than Boeing?

Are those "tiny" hairline cracks that have been found in the wing assembly of the A380s really a safety issue?

All of this, and a lot more in our first issue of the year.

If you aren't yet a subscriber to PlaneBusiness Banter -- why not? Find out how you can become one here.

Posted by Holly at 1:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello again!

Just a short note to let subscribers know that PlaneBusiness Banter is once again accessible. Apparently the company that houses our server decided to move it last night. And not tell us.

Not good.

This caused all kinds of things to happen. But I think we've worked out all the kinks and all the electrons are once again working as they should after a couple of reboots and a handful of tweaks.  

Just glad they did this during an "off" time, and not in the middle of a publishing timeframe.

Our apologies for any inconvenience, stress, or other unnecessary angst this may have caused.

FYI -- PlaneBusiness Banter returns on January 10th.

Posted by Holly at 3:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. "Almost Happy New Year" to all of you!

Don't know if this is an omen for 2012, but this morning we woke up and found that the SQL database that controls access for PlaneBusiness Banter subscribers had short-circuited. The PlaneBusiness site itself is still up, but for now, subscribers cannot access PlaneBusiness Banter when they attempt to log in.

Bad timing -- as most of our geeky friends are not at their computers this week.

I'll let everyone know here when the site is back up.

Posted by Holly at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone! I hope all of you are not crazed today. It's that time of year. It's a good time. But it can also be very stressful. So try to concentrate, leave those cookies alone and get your work done so you can push all the papers aside later in the week and just breathe. And enjoy.

And eat chocolate.

This week's two-for-one issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. I told subscribers last week that I was going to delay the publishing of our last issue for the year by a week -- so that I could talk about my trip to New York last week.

But that was not the only reason to wait until this week to write.

Delta Air Lines took Manhattan last week. And Brooklyn. And Queens. And the Bronx. And Staten Island.

In addition to the airline's new route announcements out of LaGuardia, the airline also held its investor conference in New York last week.

We let you know what the airline had to say.

Meanwhile, yours truly presented at the Business Travel News Group's Corporate Travel Management 2012 Conference in New York last week along with Kevin Crissey, airline analyst for UBS.

It was a packed house and I'll give you one piece of intel from our session. When surveyed, the group of top corporate buyers overwhelmingly said they see increased spending on air travel in 2012.

I also attended the BTN Travel Hall of Fame dinner later that evening. What a rollicking event that turned out to be, as some of the other inductees decided to turn it into a roast of former AMR Chairman and CEO Robert Crandall.

Meanwhile, while all of this was going on, airline stocks enjoyed a second week of strong gains. Big winners included JetBlue and US Airways.

But Pinnacle Airlines was not as lucky. The airline warned the week before last that it was attempting to restructure contracts with vendors, customers, and employee contracts.

The stock is now trading at about a buck.

It's a jam-packed issue this week including our yearly column in which we divulge what airline CEOs are asking for from Santa, we look at the October DOT operational numbers, and much, much more.

Subscribers can access this week's issue -- the last issue for 2011-- here!

Posted by Holly at 5:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

No surprise, we're talking a lot about American Airlines again this week.

First, the airline's labor unions have been given a strong position on the airline's creditors committee. This is no small deal, as the members of the airline's creditors committee pretty much dictate how the airline is operated and what the airline will look like when it finally escapes from the grasp of bankruptcy.

In addition, Tuesday the airline announced the first round of upper level executive departures. We expected this -- and we hope the departures announced Tuesday are just the beginning.

American's filing has begun to have ripple effects across the industry. One such effect: JetBlue announced Tuesday night that it was starting (FINALLY) BOS-DFW service in May 2012.

A different effect? Southwest Airlines' CEO Gary Kelly's letter he posted to employees about the American bankruptcy. Essentially Kelly took a hardline with employees -- making the point that Southwest Airlines is now, for all practical purposes, the airline in the crosshairs -- having never filed for bankruptcy, and now forced to compete with an aggressively managed group of "new" airlines including United, US Airways, and Delta Air Lines.

In other news, we're sad to see FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt have to resign from the agency. But someone in his position cannot be arrested for DUI. Even worse, you can't be arrested for DUI and then not tell your boss about it. Reportedly DOT Secretary LeHood found out about Babbitt's arrest only after the Fairfax City police issued a press release on Monday.

Worse, if Babbitt is convicted, he will lose his commercial pilot's license.

An extremely unfortunate situation -- both for Babbitt, and for the FAA. The last thing the agency needs right now is a distracting search for his replacement.

On Wall Street, airline stocks posted a great week last week. Well, there was one exception. But AMR was just that -- an exception. Shares of JetBlue soared, leading a number of airline stocks to hefty double-digit gains on the week.

All this and more in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter!

Posted by Holly at 3:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Good evening to all.

It's a late night tonight here at the Worldwide Headquarters. Three guesses why. That's what happens when a U.S. airline files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at 6 AM in the morning.

Not surprisingly, I spend a lot of time this week talking about AMR and American Airlines. The airline's bankruptcy filing, why it finally pulled the trigger, why the move was inevitable years ago, why it was not a "moral failure," and more.

And yes, don't even start with the AMR merger rumors. Long way between here and there.

In addition, I also take a time this week to talk about the recent DOT slot auction for slots at both LGA and DCA. While the DOT won't make the "formal" announcement concerning who won what until Thursday, the winners have either confessed or been outed by process of elimination. ;-)

The results of the auction were somewhat intriguing -- both because of what airlines were successful in nabbing slots and because of the one big airline that came away empty-handed.

Then there is the continuing mess that is the Indian aviation industry. We talked a great deal about this last week, but this week it's back on the radar as both Jet Airways and Kingfisher continue to struggle. Jet announced a new lease-back plan that should generate at least $300 million for the airline in the coming months, but Kingfisher is still looking for an investor. Meanwhile, employees haven't been paid in weeks, and the airline's pilots are beginning to leave for better opportunities. Oh, and AerCap is taking two of its planes back.

The Air Transport Association is ready to roll out its new "branding" Wednesday. Not sure I like the new name, but I am a fan of the idea behind the extreme makeover. For too long the ATA has been a wet noodle in a sea of sharks -- a totally ineffective trade organization.

So here's to a new gorilla on the block.

Meanwhile, last week was a horrible week for airline stocks. We'll go over the details of the carnage.

All that and more in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 3:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This much I know is true about the American Airlines bankruptcy.

1) With another record number of pilots about to opt for retirement on Dec. 1, the company could ill afford another run on cash reserves

2) The company can talk about "costs" all it wants, but the airline has systemic network and revenue problems it has yet to effectively address. Even if labor costs and productivity were "righted" -- airline would only break even at current revenue levels

3) Gerard Arpey had to leave. No option.

4) Expect to see a number of other high-level departures from the AMR C suite.

5) While the pilots have taken the brunt of recent headlines, I suspect it will be the flight attendant group that will be faced with the harsher changes to their contracts as part of bankruptcy process.

__________________________________________________________________

PlaneBusiness Banter subscribers -- this week's re-written <!> issue will be posted later today.

Meanwhile, for our latest take on the American situation, please join our Twitter feed at @planebusiness.

Posted by Holly at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Good evening everyone. It's time once again for this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter. Or rather, this week's "Turkey Trot" edition of PBB.

Yours truly got hit by a nasty upper respiratory infection this last weekend, so I have to tell you -- the "Turkey Trot" edition almost didn't make it to the table.

But I couldn't have all our subscribers venturing out over the river and through the woods without some good reading material.

This week we're talking about a hodge-podge of things -- lunatic legislation introduced just in time for Thanksgiving travelers that seeks to either prevent airlines from charging for fees, or then taxing airlines more that do charge for fees; a USB investment research report that pretty much calls the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme worthless; American Airlines' withering market cap; American Airline's withered state in general; SkyWest's new flying for US Airways; Travelport and American's latest court news; one analyst's take on the latest Southwest Airlines' schedule uploads for 2Q2012, and what these changes mean for competitors; Hawaiian Airlines' decision to take Manhattan; the DOT's September Airline Consumer Travel Report; and oh, a whole lot more.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 1:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. It's that time again. PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. This week we are talking airplanes, pilot contracts and we wrap up the third quarter earnings season with our in-depth look at the recent earnings calls from WestJet, Air Canada and Republic Holdings.

American Airlines had clearly wanted a contract with its pilots in place before the AMR board meetings began Wednesday of this week. Does not look like that is going to happen.

The lack of a contract continues to drag down shares of the airline. Tuesday shares slid 1%, closing at 1.92. Shares dropped 5% on Monday.

Looking at what the company has proposed, I think it's going to be hard for the APA Board to sell the deal to its membership given the wide disparity between the numbers its members had proposed and numbers the airline has proposed.

We look at the 101 page position paper the pilots at United Airlines distributed last week regarding their concerns over training and integration procedures with the merged airline. Who knew the FAA inspector who was fined for his involvement with the Southwest Airlines fiasco a few years ago is the same FAA inspector involved in the FAA SOC [single operating certificate] process at United Airlines?

Of course we also wrap up the third quarter earnings season as we take our in-depth view at the recent earnings call from Republic Holdings, Air Canada, and WestJet.

Then there is the Dubai Airshow. We give you all the top news from the event that passed $55 billion in orders as of Tuesday.

As usual, all this and much, much, more in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter .

Posted by Holly at 12:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone.

It's that time once again. This week's edition of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

This week we have yet more third quarter earnings to discuss, as we take in-depth looks at the results posted by Allegiant, SkyWest and Pinnacle.

Next week, we wrap up our third quarter earnings call coverage as we look at Republic Holdings, Air Canada and WestJet.

Speaking of WestJet, our moles tell us that we should expect to hear another "important" announcement along with the airline's third quarter numbers this week. That would make sense. It would also explain why the airline is late in reporting their numbers for the quarter.

Speaking of Republic -- did you see what happened to shares of Republic Tuesday? That's right. Shares picked up a whopping 61% on the day on incredibly heavy volume. The airline reported better than expected numbers and also gave clear guidance on how it plans to divest itself of Frontier Airlines. Investors liked what they heard. Obviously.

Late Tuesday there was an update posted on the AMR negotiations website concerning the negotiations between American and its pilots. This follows a week in which all indications continue to point to news of a new tentative agreement between American Airlines and its pilots being announced in the not-too-distant future.

Meanwhile, pilots at Southwest Airlines and AirTran overwhelmingly okayed their proposed seniority agreement. No surprise there.

Internationally, Singapore Airlines, IAG Group and Emirates all reported sharp declines in earnings for the quarter last week -- as higher fuel prices took their toll.

Meanwhile, does IAG have a deal to buy bmi from Lufthansa or not? Depends on who you are asking. If you are asking Willie Walsh, the answer is yes. But if you are asking Richard Branson, the answer is apparently no.

Question of the week -- How many weeks does it take to train new Boeing 787 pilots? Answer: Five weeks.

No, that's not a joke. That's what ANA is doing. Five weeks?

As usual, all of this, and much more -- in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 2:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. This week we feel like we've been trapped on a tarmac for 7 hours. Or maybe 36 hours. Or maybe longer.

Yes, it's the biggest earnings issue of the quarter, as we take the microscope to the third quarter earnings calls this week from Delta Air Lines, US Airways, United Continental, Spirit Airlines, and JetBlue.

How long is this week's issue. Oh, I don't know. 150 pages more or less.

Needless to say, there is certainly not a lack of things to talk about in this week's issue, and some of the topics are not even earnings related.

Take for instance, last weekend's freak snowstorm in the Northeast. I'm sure the folks at JetBlue would love to give it to you.

Once again, the airline found itself the brunt of headlines far and wide after passengers on a number of the airline's aircraft were forced to sit on said aircraft for hours, and hours, and hours after landing in Hartford.  American Airlines also saw one of its international flights diverted there, and all in all, a horrible time was had by all.

Although the governor of Connecticut seemed to think passengers weren't looking at the situation in the right light. He reminded those who finally did make it inside Bradley International that hey, they landed safely, didn't they?

We also talk a lot this week about the subject of fuel hedging.

I am convinced that airlines need to stop doing it.

Why?

Because it's not necessary.

Airlines now have the resources and the planning tools they need to weather the ups and downs of fuel prices. Hedging has become a complicated unnecessary expense.

At least that's how I see it.

And hey, how 'bout the management team at Qantas? CEO Alan Joyce finally had it last week with the ongoing "mini strikes" and other various efforts by three different employee groups to disrupt the airline's operations. Saturday, the airline simply shut down.

Brilliant move on the part of Joyce in my opinion.

He knew if he did it, the Australian government would be forced to step in, which it did, and the arbitration court in Australia on Sunday ordered the employees at Qantas back to work -- but only after it was made clear that employees were forbidden to participate in any more "mini-strike" job actions.

I can't recall any airline ever doing anything like this. Ever.

As usual, this is just the tip of the iceberg. This week's issue is huge, and we're talking about a lotta stuff.

Subscribers can access this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter here.

Posted by Holly at 12:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. This week in PlaneBusiness Banter we are talking earnings. And more earnings. And more earnings.

This week's 150-plus page issue contains our earnings call reviews for American Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Alaska Air Group and Southwest Airlines.

To sum up? We now know American has no more unencumbered aircraft (all the furniture has now, officially, been burned), one analyst believes the company is pushing pilots to agree to an expanded domestic codesharing agreement so that American can enter into such an agreement with US Airways, and yet another analyst thinks the airline's liquidity situation is inevitably going to lead to a bankruptcy filing -- probably in 2012.

Meanwhile, American Eagle and its pilots came to terms on a new eight-year tentative agreement last week.

Southwest Airlines' earnings call was ...long. The airline's financial results are...confusing. They are going to be that way for probably another couple of quarters -- until the merger with AirTran passes the year-over-year comp mark. Meanwhile the airline's costs are higher than we'd like to see but revenues were good.

Many of you still appear to be confused as to whether the airline lost money or made money. We explain all of that, and we give you CFO Laura Wright's dissertation on the airline's hedge situation. In full.

Laura deserves a medal for that performance.

Alaska Air Group had another strong quarter. The airline now does appear to be that very rare breed. Quarter in, quarter out, the airline continues to produce exceptional margins while running a very well managed operation.

Pinch me. Is this company really operating an airline?

Hawaiian Airlines also had a very good third quarter. The airline has taken a number of risks over the last couple of years, in an attempt to diversify its flying mix. This quarter's results prove the airline's strategic plan is working.

A heads up for institutional investors -- management members from both Alaska Air Group and Hawaiian Airlines will be in New York in November for investor days. I'd recommend you go and talk to the teams from both airlines.

All this and much more in this week's lengthy issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Continue reading "PlaneBusiness Banter Now Posted!" »

Posted by Holly at 12:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let's try this again. It seems that our blog editor chose to eat my earlier post this evening. You guys know the drill. This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

This week we talk a lot about American Airlines. Again. We also talk about the craziness going on in Europe where it truly is "Let's Make a Deal" season. Aer Lingus, British Airways, Etihad, Virgin Atlantic, bmi. It's a mad, mad, mad world out there.

Airline stocks had a great week last week -- and one stock in particular shone the brightest. That stock was Spirit Airlines. The airline announced killer traffic numbers last week and shares took off in the low fare carrier as a result.

JetBlue announced its CFO, Ed Barnes, had resigned, effective immediately, after the close of trading Tuesday. We never like to hear that a CFO has resigned, effective immediately. In addition, given the timing of the news, just one week before the airline announces third quarter earnings, you have to believe this was a board of directors decision.

The DOT reported its August Airline Consumer Travel Report last week. We dissect the numbers and let you know who had a good month and who didn't. Hint: JetBlue had an awful month -- the result of the August storms that raked the East Coast. But US Airways and Continental Airlines both saw their performances slip for the month as well.

Of course the big news this week is earnings. Hawaiian Airlines kicked off the third quarter earnings season Tuesday with better than expected numbers, and Wednesday, American Airlines will report its third quarter loss. As has been the case for more quarters than we can remember, American should be the only major U.S. airline to post a loss for the quarter.

Thursday we hear the profit news from Alaska Air Group and Southwest Airlines.

As always, we talk about all of this -- and much more -- in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello earthlings. This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. In this week's issue we take a follow-up look at the problem known as AMR. After our look at the airline's Monday Meltdown last week, this week we give you more insight from an assortment of Wall Street analysts. The upshot? Bankruptcy is not going to save the airline, but at the same time, the airline does not appear to be anywhere near a filing.

The airline also announced cuts in capacity for the late fall and winter months. This news was probably the best news American Airlines could have uttered. Analysts liked the reductions. The airline says they are not a result of falling demand -- but of higher fuel prices. Not certain, but the airline's continued exodus of top-tier pilots just might have something to do with the airline pulling back on the reins as well.

Other airline stocks suffered as a result of AMR's drop last week. US airline stocks were clearly the laggards in a week that saw the the rest of the markets do fairly well.

NextGen. FAA. Congress. Department of Transportation Inspector General.

Send chills up your spine yet? It should.

Last week the FAA and its project management of the NextGen project got raked over the coals by the DOT IG. But as we talk about this week in PBB, how can the FAA be expected to manage such a complex project when it can't even count on having money to pay for paper clips from day to day -- a result of how the agency is funded (or is not funded) by Congress?

Meanwhile, the European Court of Justice gave the EU a huge thumbs up last week on its plan to charge airlines around the world for their greenhouse gas emissions. Needless to say the airline industry is not happy about this.

Southwest Airlines' CEO Gary Kelly talked to Bloomberg last week and he started throwing around some huge revenue numbers that he says the airline can produce -- as a result of its AirTran acquisition. Only one problem. I've been talking to a number of industry people who don't think he can.

What do you think?

Which reminds me. This week you, our subscribers, get a chance to tell me what the next airline merger will be. That's right. Sharpen up those pencils and send me your two cents on just which merger could be next on our radar. And why.

All this and much, much more in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone.

This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. No surprise that this week's issue is headlined by the events from Monday. We talk a lot about the AMR Monday Meltdown. We give you the facts. Then we give you our opinion.

Before shares of AMR went on their freefall Monday, there was good news for another airline last week. A US District Court Judge awarded US Airways a preliminary injunction against its pilot union, USAPA. You may recall the airline asked for the injunction the end of July, as it claimed the pilots were engaged in an organized attempt to "slow down" or disrupt the airline. Apparently Judge Conrad agreed.

We also talk a bit more about Stelios and his plans to start up a new airline. Last week we quoted one European airline analyst who said he thought the rumblings were merely Stelios' latest attempt to extract more funds from the easyJet management.

That's not what we heard this week. We let you in on all the details as to why the founder of easyJet may just be serious about a new start-up.

Travelport narrowly avoided a trip to bankruptcy court last week, as parent company Blackstone managed to convince debt holders to accept an extension. However that extension came at a price. Blackstone was forced to pay the highest interest rate paid so far this year for a debt restructuring, according to Bloomberg.

It's hell when a scheduled IPO never happens and a company has a horrific LBO overhang. And that is exactly where Travelport is, as parent company Blackstone was forced last spring to pull Travelport's expected IPO. Meanwhile, Travelport's market share of the GDS market continues to shrink.

Emirates is coming to town. The airline announced two new U.S. destinations last week, and outlined a list of other U.S. destinations that are on the airline's hit list.

Allegiant Airlines announced a couple of strange moves last week as the airline announced it was going to start flying between Phoenix (Mesa) and Las Vegas, and it announced it was pulling out of Long Beach completely. Wait, wasn't the reason they were in Long Beach in the first place because the airline wanted to launch its Hawaii flights from there?

We talk about third quarter airline stock performance this week as well. A hint -- we don't have a lot to talk about as only one airline stock posted a gain for the quarter. One.

As for last week, the results on Wall Street weren't quite that bad, but it wasn't anything to get excited about.

As usual, all this and more -- in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter .

Posted by Holly at 10:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple of observations on today's black day for airline stocks.

One, the markets are in panic mode in general today -- as fears of a continued economic slowdown shake the Street. This is not just an airline sector sell-off, it's a general market fear-driven sell-off fueled by continuing concerns over the situation in Europe.

Two, the general market assumption is that if the economy goes south, so will airline revenues.

Three, in the case of AMR, the situation is particularly acute, because investors know the airline has lagged in revenue performance, and the airline is the most cash restrained of all the major airlines.

Four, fears of an impending AMR bankruptcy have been rumbling around and picking up traction for the last 30-45 days. Increasing numbers of retiring pilots do not help the situation, nor do continued analyst concerns over the airline's long-term liquidity health.

Looking at the latest sector numbers for today, it looks as if shares of other airline stocks that were hammered earlier in the day into double-digit declines have bounced back a bit, while the volume of AMR shares traded continues to boggle the mind. Shares of AMR have climbed back a little bit since trading was resumed. Now shares are only down 30%, trading at around 2.07. Earlier in the day shares were down to 1.75.

Not 35%.

The current trend is up, not down.

Posted by Holly at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's not been a good day for AMR on Wall Street.

Posted by Holly at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I wrote recently in PlaneBusiness Banter, a funny thing happens when a company begins to show signs of failing. Often times, the state of the company may not be as bad as outsiders perceive, but one but one, things can begin to happen that accelerate the perception that the company is in trouble.

Once that process begins, it can be very difficult to reverse course.

I think that is what we have going on with AMR, parent of American Airlines.

Late last Friday the company announced that another 129 pilots had opted to retire, effective Oct. 1. While that data point in and of itself is not indicative of anything, other than the fact the pilots want to lock in their benefit levels at stock prices that are higher than they are now -- that is not how Wall Street is interpreting the news. Wall Street thinks this much-higher-than-normal exodus is a negative "insider sentiment" as to the airline's financial situation.

This morning, while the entire industry has taken a dive across the board, Wall Street investors have dumped shares of AMR much harder and much faster.

So hard and fast that trading had to be halted in shares of the stock.

Prior to the halt, shares had slipped down more than 20%. After trading was resumed, the sell-off continued at an even faster clip. Shares have been down as much as 38%.

As of this posting (12:48 CDT) almost three times the average daily volume of AMR shares have already been traded, and the stock is sitting at $1.92, down 35% on the day.

Posted by Holly at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As per U.S. District Court Judge Conrad's order that was issued earlier this week, the US Airlines Pilots Association (USAPA), which represents the pilots at US Airways, posted the following letter to its members on its website today.

Funny thing is -- it is not posted on the public part of the site. You have to use a member user name and password to access it behind the firewall, or be on the union's email list. Or, as in my case, have a copy forwarded to me by an American Airlines' pilot.

Interestingly, the last publicly posted piece on the union's website is an article dated May 25, 2011, headlined, "US Airways Pilots Protest Slow Pace of Contract Talks."

Methinks there has been one heck of a lot of news that has involved the union since then. Perhaps a news update might be in order.

______________________________________________

USAPA Update on Injunction Order

In compliance with Section IV of Judge Conrad's ruling in the United States District Court, Western District of North Carolina, USAPA is distributing the following notice to all US Airways pilots by the most expeditious means possible. USAPA will provide more information as soon as it becomes available. Thank you for your prompt and thorough review of the following:

NOTICE TO ALL US AIRWAYS PILOTS

In July 2011, US Airways filed a complaint against USAPA alleging USAPA had violated and was violating the Railway Labor Act ("RLA") by, among other things, engaging in a concerted effort to interfere with US Airways’ airline operations, including but not limited to a slowdown, work stoppage, strike, sick-out, work to rule campaign, and other concerted refusals to perform normal pilot operations. At the time it filed the complaint, US Airways sought a preliminary injunction to prevent USAPA from engaging in the acts and conduct alleged in the complaint. After a full evidentiary hearing conducted on August 19 and 22, 2011, by decision and order dated September 28, 2011, the Court found there was evidence sufficient to meet the legal burden that USAPA had engaged in actions that violated the RLA.

The September 28, 2011 order specifically enjoins USAPA and its members, agents, and employees, and any persons and organizations acting in concert with, through, or under it, or by and through its order, from violating the status quo provisions of the Railway Labor Act and from permitting, instigating, authorizing, encouraging, participating in, approving, or continuing any interference with Plaintiff's airline operations, including, but not limited to, any slowdown, strike, work stoppage, sick-out, work to rule campaign, or any concerted refusal to perform normal pilot operations in violation of the RLA. This order continues in effect unless and until modified by the Court.

All US Airways pilots are instructed to fully perform their normal working schedules and practices.

All US Airways pilots who are engaging in a concerted refusal to perform normal pilot operations are directed to cease and desist from any concerted refusal to perform normal pilot operations, by engaging in acts including but not limited to slow taxiing, writing up all maintenance items, calling in fatigued, delaying flights, refusing to answer a call from the scheduling, refusing to fly an aircraft that meets the requirements for flight, or refusing to accept voluntary or overtime flying, and to cease and desist all exhortations or communications encouraging same.

USAPA will take all steps and measures to comply with the letter and spirit of the Court's order and instructs and directs all US Airways pilots to do the same. Any and all acts and conduct in violation of this Order may subject individuals and those acting in concert with them to punishment under the contempt powers of the Court.

A copy of the order issued by the Court is shown below.

US AIRLINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION

________________________________

ORDER ISSUED BY THE COURT

September 28, 2011

The Court . . . HEREBY ORDERS:

1. USAPA and its members, agents, and employees, and all persons and organizations acting by, in concert with, through, or under it, or by and through its order, are enjoined from permitting, instigating, authorizing, encouraging, participating in, approving, or continuing any interference with Plaintiff's airline operations, including, but not limited to, any slowdown, strike, work stoppage, sick-out, work to rule campaign, or any concerted refusal to perform normal pilot operations in violation of the RLA, pending a hearing on the permanent injunction.

2. USAPA shall take all reasonable steps within its power to prevent the aforesaid actions and to refrain from continuing the aforesaid actions if commenced, including, but not limited to, the following:

a. Instructing all pilots represented by USAPA and employed by Plaintiff to resume their normal working schedule and practices and providing Plaintiff a copy of all such instructions;

b. Notifying all pilots represented by USAPA and employed by Plaintiff, by the most expeditious means possible, of the issuance, contents, and meaning of this Preliminary Injunction and providing Plaintiff a copy of all such notices;

c. Including in such notice a directive from USAPA to US Airways’s pilots who are engaging in a concerted refusal to perform normal pilot operations, including but not limited to, slow taxiing, writing up all maintenance items, calling in fatigued, delaying flights, refusing to answer a call from the scheduling, refusing to fly an aircraft that meets the requirements for flight, or refusing to accept voluntary or overtime flying, to cease and desist all such activity and to cease and desist all exhortations or communications encouraging same.

d. Posting the notice described above on Defendant USAPA’s internet websites and providing Plaintiff a copy of the notices;

e. Including the contents of such notice on any and all recorded telephone hotlines under control of USAPA, until such time as the Court has acted on Plaintiff's Motion for a Permanent Injunction, and providing Plaintiff a copy of all such messages; and

f. Distributing the contents of such notice through all non-public communication systems maintained by USAPA, including any telephone trees, text message lists, pilot-to-pilot communication systems, or similar systems, and providing Plaintiff a copy of the notices.

3. USAPA is prohibited from including in such notices (or distributing contemporaneously with such notices) any statements that are intended or could reasonably be interpreted to mean that pilots should continue to engage in the previously-described conduct notwithstanding the Preliminary Injunction.

4. USAPA shall report to the Court by 5 p.m. on October 4, 2011, by sworn affidavit, the methods used to effect the notice described above to all USAPA-represented pilots, and furnish to the Court copies of all notices required to be furnished to the Plaintiff under the Court's Order.

Posted by Holly at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It took a little longer than some people had anticipated, but this afternoon U.S. District Court Judge Robert Conrad granted US Airways a preliminary injunction against the airline's pilot union, US Airlines Pilot Association (USAPA).

As you may recall, US Airways sought the injunction in August, when it claimed that the pilot union had been involved in actions to deliberately slow down and/or disrupt the airline's operations.

Judge Conrad apparently agrees.

In his ruling, USAPA and its members are now prevented from "permitting, instigating, authorizing, encouraging, participating in, approving, or continuing any interference with Plaintiff’s airline operations, including, but not limited to, any slowdown, strike, work stoppage, sick-out, work to rule campaign, or any concerted refusal toperform normal pilot operations in violation of the RLA, pending a hearing on the permanent injunction."

Conrad instructed the organization very clearly as to how and what they now need to communicate to its members.

USAPA was ordered to report to court no later than 5 p.m., on Oct. 4, what methods it has used to comply with the court order.

For those of you who are legal eagles like I am, click here for a .pdf of the complete TRO document.

I think you will agree that Conrad has read the union the proverbial "riot act." Not a whole lot of positives in this order for the union. Not surprisingly, however, given how strong the airline's initial complaint was, as we noted last month in PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. We are all over the place this week as first, I tell you what you missed at The BeatLive Conference last week. The conference usually attracts an assortment of corporate travel heavyweights. This year was no exception.

Then of course we have to talk a bit about that certain airplane that was finally delivered to its new owners in Everett, WA on Monday. You know. The one that was just a tad late and, apparently, a tad overweight.

Yes, Boeing finally delivered its first 787 to All Nippon Airways (ANA) on Monday.

We also have lots of union labor news to talk about. How many American Airlines' pilots are now expected to retire on Oct. 1? We hear the number could be almost four times as many who retired at the beginning of September.

American Airlines was also in the news last week as Moody's lowered its outlook on the airline's debt to "negative." Tuesday, the airline announced an EETC debt refinancing deal. We let you know what JP Morgan analyst Mark Streeter thinks of the debt deal.

One thing's for sure. The airline is certainly paying more than it did back in January for the deal. Yield on this one is in the 8% range. In January the airline did a financing deal at about 5.25%. That's what rumors of bankruptcy, impending debt bills, and a continued inability to make a profit and throw off cash does.

Meanwhile, pilots from both Continental and United Airlines picketed on Wall Street Tuesday.

We update you on the status of the pilot negotiations at United, in addition we wonder why it is that pilots think Wall Street analysts really care if they picket outside the NYSE. And why it's really a bad idea -- both for United and for the industry as a whole.

Speaking of Wall Street, airline stocks did not have a good week last week. Neither did Wall Street. We give you our take on the latest economic tea leaf reads and tell you why this Thursday is a very important day for the eurozone -- and US financial markets as well.

One good side effect of continued eurozone anxiety - both crude oil and jet fuel posted large declines for the week. That is very good news for airlines.

Lots of reader mail this week -- from baseball to airlines to comments on our column from last week.

All this and more -- in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter .

Posted by Holly at 1:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. Just a short note this week to let you know that this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

PBB is posted a bit earlier than usual this week, as yours truly is headed out to Las Vegas in a couple of hours, where I will attend The BeatLive Conference.

This will mark the fourth year I've attended this corporate travel get-together of industry heavyweights, and I look forward once again to getting my corporate travel gossip fix for the year.

Jay Campbell, the founder of The Beat, has challenged all attendees of the conference to join him in a SkyJump off the Stratosphere. (You freefall from 108 stories up.) Think I should do it? I'll keep you posted.

This week we're talking more about the great third quarter guidance we keep hearing from all the US airlines (although one major airline will still post a loss...guess who?) and of course we're talking about Boeing's 747-8 launch debacle involving Cargolux. What a mess that is.

In other news, we also break down the second quarter earnings news from Virgin America, which was released Friday by the airline. (As Virgin is not publicly traded, they report their numbers to the DOT and they are not released until much later than the rest of the sector.)

You know what they say about companies that issue press releases on Friday. That's right. It's usually an indication they'd prefer the information was somewhat ignored.

Looking at the numbers posted by Virgin, I can understand why.

How did they stack up compared to the recent second quarter results posted by the rest of the North American airline group? We'll fill you in.

Meanwhile it sounds like the mothership of the Virgin empire, Virgin Atlantic is set to announce an alliance hook-up. If it's not Star, I'll be very, very, very, surprised.

We've got the latest on jet fuel, and more importantly we tell you how well the US airline sector fared on Wall Street last week -- after all those bullish comments the various airline execs made at the Deutsche Bank Transportation Conference.

Oh, and Shoshana Hebshi? We talk about her experience flying on 9/11 as well. If you have not read her blog post in which she details what happened to her -- including being strip-searched -- after being taken off a Frontier Airlines flight in handcuffs on September 11, it's a must read.

Fear. It's not a good thing.

Meanwhile, in our column this week, I give props to the current crop of airline CEOs. You know why? They deserve it. I'll tell you why it's a good thing the industry now appears to be led by a group of adults rather than a bunch of flamboyant "characters."

All this and more in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

On that note, I don't want to miss my flight to Vegas. Gotta go. Talk to you guys later!

Posted by Holly at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. We're back from our August hiatus. Perfect timing too, as today airline execs took their turns talking to investors at the Deutsche Bank Aviation Conference. And what did most of them say? Demand has not slowed.

In addition, remember that the airlines were the beneficiary of that nice FAA tax collection snafu in August, which fattened their bank accounts with a little unexpected spending money. Tuesday a number of airlines gave more precise guidance as to just how much their bank balances were fattened, as a result of Congress being unable to act like adults.

All of this positive news caused the markets to reward the flailing airline sector with a huge turnaround today.

The depth and strength of airline exec comments today really did seem to be in direct opposition to how we, and everyone else on the planet, perceive the macro economic landscape. I was surprised at some of the PRASM estimates for September that were floated today. Much better than I had anticipated.

This week is also "catch-up" week as we update subscribers on what went down with the Southwest Airlines/AirTran pilot seniority list integration proposal in August. Essentially the AirTran ALPA MEC refused to send the proposal to the AirTran pilot rank and file for a vote.

As of now, both sides are supposedly "talking" but there is already a "drop-dead" date established with the negotiations. If nothing is resolved by that date -- the matter will be arbitrated.

We also talk this week about the situation at American Airlines. The airline had 111 pilots opt for retirement on Sept. 1. This is an abnormally high number, (the average monthly total is 11) and it appears the airline may have a similar number, if not more, opt to retire the beginning of October.

We talk about whether this is an "insider sentiment" that indicates the pilot group believes a bankruptcy is around the corner -- or if it is simply a reflection of the sharp downturn in the value of AMR shares over the last quarter. (There is a look-back period in terms of what date and stock price is used in calculating benefits.)

Of course, we talk about how the airline sector performed both last week and while we were on vacation. We also go over the July DOT Air Travel Consumer report.

Then there is the usual hodge podge of goodies including an update on Stelios and his latest attack on the EasyJet board of directors, Moody's cut in Travelport's debt rating, the update in the case between American and Sabre, the skinny on the person who bit the Alaska Airlines first officer, and much, much more.

Subscribers can access this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter here.

Posted by Holly at 12:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While the world paused today to commemorate the events that happened September 11, 2001, we -- as we have since that awful day -- prefer to focus on our departed airline family members. Those crew members who went to work on what was a beautiful day -- but never came home.

Yes, there were thousands of people who lost their lives that day. But for those of us who follow this industry, work in this industry, or simply continue to be fascinated by its endearing dysfunctionality, the loss of four airline crews that day hit us hard. And it still hurts.

This is our corner of the world. And as I see it, the courage and bravery of these crewmembers deserve our heartfelt acknowledgment. And remembrance.

American Airlines Flight 11, Boston to Los Angeles, crashed into the World Trade Center.

CREW: John Ogonowski, Dracut, Mass., Captain; Thomas McGuinness, Portsmouth, N.H., First Officer; Barbara Arestegui, flight attendant; Jeffrey Collman, flight attendant; Sara Low, flight attendant; Karen Martin, flight attendant; Kathleen Nicosia, flight attendant; Betty Ong, flight attendant; Jean Roger, flight attendant; Dianne Snyder, flight attendant; Madeline Sweeney, flight attendant.

United Airlines Flight 175, Boston to Los Angeles, crashed into the World Trade Center.

CREW: Victor J. Saracini, Lower Makefield Township, Pa., Captain; Michael Horrocks, First Officer; Amy Jarret, flight attendant; Al Marchand, flight attendant; Amy King, flight attendant; Kathryn Laborie, flight attendant; Michael Tarrou, flight attendant; Alicia Titus, flight attendant.

American Airlines Flight 77, Washington to Los Angeles, crashed into the Pentagon.

CREW: Charles Burlingame, Captain; David Charlebois, First Officer; Michele Heidenberger, flight attendant; Jennifer Lewis, flight attendant; Kenneth Lewis, flight attendant; and Renee May, flight attendant.

United Airlines Flight 93, Newark, N.J., to San Francisco, crashed in Shanksville, Pa.

CREW: Jason Dahl, Colorado, Captain; Leroy Homer, Marlton, N.J., First Officer; Sandy Bradshaw, flight attendant; CeeCee Lyles, flight attendant; Lorraine Bay, flight attendant; Wanda Green, flight attendant; Deborah Welsh, flight attendant.

May they all be at peace in a much better place.

Posted by Holly at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Honestly? I don't want to remember 9.11.01.

I don't want to listen to the audio of American Airlines flight attendant Betty Ong -- knowing what I know now.

I don't want to watch videos of children who lost parents when the WTC collapsed.

I don't want to listen to the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald talk about that day and how he lost 658 employees -- including his own brother. I knew people who worked there. Friends.

I don't want to look at the photograph of NYFD Chaplain Mychal Judge again, as he was carried from the North Tower -- already dead -- and feel the same emotions I felt when I first saw the image.

I also don't want to remember how much I miss Peter Jennings either.

Please wake me up on Monday.

Posted by Holly at 7:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Figures. I return from vacation, start up the combines, drag out the harvesters, and look what happens to the blog. Actually the blog was screwball when I walked in here this morning. I'm not sure what the deal is, but it must be a Movable Type issue, as I have not been in here since 8.24.11. I am completely and totally not to blame.

Yep. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

We're off to see if we can figure out what the problem is here. Actually what that really means is I am going to send an email to the one person I know who can tell me what is wrong, and hopefully fix it. Me, myself? No, I am not capable of figuring out such tedious nonsense.

In the meantime, I'm off to peruse the feedback from today's Dahlman Rose Global Transport Conference in New York.

Talk to you later.

Posted by Holly at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When people ask me why it is that I started PlaneBusiness, why it is I continue to work as hard as I do every week producing it, (except on weeks like this one when I am supposed to be "on vacation") and what inspired me to think I could do it in the first place, I invariably think about the quote below.

There is a longer version of the quote, but this excerpt is the one that was used in the Apple "Think Different" commercials. A legendary campaign in advertising lore, and an enduring reminder of a way of looking at the world that is no less important today -- and perhaps even more so -- then when the campaign was first rolled out in 1997. No coincidence that 1997 was also the year I founded PlaneBusiness.com and PlaneBusiness Banter.

While the "Think Different" campaign served as a mantra to those of us who are crazy enough to think we can make a difference --the misfits, the round pegs in square holes with no respect for the status quo -- the quote is, at its heart, an apt description of Apple's brilliant co-founder -- Steve Jobs.

"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. "

That is why today is a sad day. A very sad day.

Steve Jobs announced today that he is stepping down as CEO of Apple -- a result of his increasingly fragile health. While it's not clear exactly what he is now suffering from, we all know what this news really means. The misfit, the rebel -- the troublemaker -- is in trouble.

Thank you Steve for your genius, your creativity, and your incredible sense of design that was always so seamlessly coupled with intuitive functionality.

And yes, you did change the world.

Posted by Holly at 4:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. This week we wrap up our Q2 earnings coverage with a look at Air Canada and WestJet. Bottomline? WestJet turned in a terrific performance. For Air Canada, the airline has made good progress wading through the swamps of its myriad of labor contracts that came up this year, but the airline was close-mouthed about its efforts at pension restructuring it is trying to incorporate in the new contracts.

Meanwhile, RASM performance at Air Canada lagged, the airline still has that large overhang of debt, and oh yeah, there are those pension obligations.

Meanwhile, the airline still sounds as though it intends to go through with its idea for a new low cost carrier.

I still say that is a mistake.

In other news, we look at the DOT Air Travel Consumer Report for July. Yes, the rather obvious decline in the on-time stats of US Airways continued in July, as did the abysmal showing for American Eagle in three out of four categories.

Lots of labor follow-up this week including; Southwest pilots; AirTran pilots, United baggage handlers, mechanics at American Airlines; and Delta Air Lines' pilots.

How about this effort on the part of a group of Delta Air Lines' pilots to start their own independent union? They claim they have more than 3300 pilot members and their hot-button issue is ...scope.

Meanwhile, we'll update you on the latest in the AirTran/Southwest pilot contract activity. Last week some Southwest Airlines' pilots were upset after SWAPA sent out a letter detailing some of the terms of the proposed deal. Meanwhile, AIrTran pilots have yet to see anything, as their MEC still hasn't decided if they are even going to a copy of the deal.

[Insert the voice of the old commercial for that silly game "Operation!" Only insert "Arbitration!" instead.]

And -- then there was the ALPA representational election at JetBlue. JetBlue pilots voted no.

American put out more details about how it plans to "spin-off" Eagle last week. Apparently there are no third parties involved at this point in time.

Oh, we talk about crack spreads this week, Ryanair buying airport buildings, Tiger Airways taking to the skies again, Gol's abysmal second quarter earnings, why Spirit Airlines is sizzling hot, and more.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 11:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Interesting follow-up research note out today from Avondale Partners analyst Bob McAdoo.

Bob decided to follow up on Southwest's second quarter comments concerning business travel. Essentially the airline said in its earnings call that revenues, particularly business fares, were weak in the second quarter. Compared to the rest of the industry, Southwest's revenue performance -- both business and leisure-- lagged.

Bob's hunch? The airline had been too aggressive on fares.

Following up on his own experience flying out of Kansas City over the last year, when he says he has repeatedly found lower fares on legacy carriers than on Southwest, Bob decided to do a broad random sample of fares in a selection of markets to see if his theory about the airline having higher prices than the competition would hold up.

As he explained in his note,

"For each itinerary, we priced out two different close-in journeys and logged in the prices.

First, we selected 8 origin cities from across the LUV network, seeking both more and less active cities. For each of these origins, we then selected the top 50 LUV destinations from each origin and then randomly selected 20%, or 10 destinations, from among the 50 largest destinations for each origin.

...Upon review of the data, it seems Southwesthas a different pricing regimen against Alaska Airlines in Seattle than in the other cities. Southwest seems to be more aggressive in pricing below Alaska. For this reason, we excluded Seattle data and reduced the study to the 70 markets out of the 7 remaining cities.

...For the 140 trips on 70 random itineraries, there was a consistent pattern on 50 of the markets. Southwest was more expensive in 40 of the 50, or 80% of the trips. The legacy airlines were more expensive on 10 or 20% of the trips. When Southwest was more expensive,it was, on average, a $134 higher fare— a 26.4% premium. We obviously don’t know whether this pattern is driving the slower business travel on Southwest. Nonetheless,there is clearly a trend that we will continue watching in coming months."

Having said all that, however, as McAdoo notes, if Southwest continues to slow down its capacity growth, not only will that help Southwest, it will help the rest of the industry. "A lid on LUV growth should be good for LUV and for all airlines," he writes.

Posted by Holly at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An update on the situation involving the AirTran ALPA MEC that I posted earlier this week.

The Southwest Airlines SWAPA Communication Committee has issued an update today to the Southwest Airlines' pilots in which they say that the AirTran MEC is now meeting in Atlanta to discuss the Side Letter 9 -- that's the pilot seniority agreement to you lay people out there.

This, after earlier in the week, the AirTran MEC had notified SWAPA leadership that the meeting had been "postponed indefinitely."

Hmmmm. Sounds like somebody came to their senses.

I don't care what the AirTran ALPA MEC eventually decides -- that is their call -- but I think they need to make a decision one way or another -- which will then allow the process to continue. If the AirTran ALPA MEC decides to send the agreement to the rank and file for a vote, then we'll see a roadshow start almost immediately.

From the SWAPA Communications Committee, August 11, 2011:

Fellow SWAPA Pilots,

Late yesterday evening, the AirTran MEC Chairman informed SWAPA president, Steve Chase that their MEC was in ATL and had started their MEC meeting originally scheduled for this week. Notice was given earlier in the week that they were postponing their meeting until some internal items and language was received for their review.

With their MEC convened in ATL, we expect their MEC vote on their equivalent of our Side Letter 9 at some point during their meeting, and we don't know how long it may run. If their MEC votes to send the agreement to their membership, we have an extensive roadshow schedule planned to visit every pilot base in the next three weeks. In the meantime, we continue to wait on their MEC to determine if we are going on the road. As soon as we have more information we will pass it along.

Thanks for your continued patience and please stay tuned.

Posted by Holly at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No surprise that last week Southwest Airlines touted the fact that its pilots and the pilots at AirTran had already negotiated a seniority agreement as part of the airline's merger process during its quarterly earnings call.

Given the dysfunctional situation that continues with the pilot group at US Airways, after America West acquired US Airways, and the ongoing difficult talks going on with the pilot groups of both United and Continental as they try and hash out a contract and seniority agreement, the airline had a reason to be happy.

And, as best as we could tell, after a bit of initial squawking, it did appear that the pilot group at Southwest was probably onboard with the deal, as we talked about last week in PlaneBusiness Banter.

The problem is -- the AIrTran ALPA MEC was supposed to meet and give its "thumbs-up" to the deal and then push it out to members for a vote. Two weeks ago. Then it was last week. Then it was supposed to be this week.

No meeting.

Today, the AirTran MEC notified their counterparts in Dallas that the meeting of the MEC to discuss the deal has been postponed "INDEFINITELY."

The official SWAPA correspondence is included here.

Update from your Executive Team

Two weeks ago, your board of directors reviewed the contents of Side Letter 9 and voted unanimously to send it to the membership for ratification. Since that time we have been waiting for the AirTran MEC to administer their meeting and decide if their membership will be voting with ours on the agreement. Meetings on their end, which were originally to coincide with ours, have been pushed back multiple times. They were scheduled to meet this week, Wednesday through Friday, to finally make a decision at their board level on the merits of this agreement. This afternoon, however, SWAPA was notified by ATN-ALPA via email that they have postponed their scheduled meeting indefinitely.

We have given you outlines of what this deal entails for you with the final language. A much broader education plan is in the works, if this deal is approved by their MEC. We know many of you are waiting (with continued patience) for further explanation and data, but we must still hold off until a decision on their end is made. In the meantime, SWAPA will continue preparations for arbitration.

We will update you as often and as thoroughly as possible as things progress. These delays don’t help either pilot group or the Company. "

Posted by Holly at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Good evening everyone. In this week's chokingly long issue, we take our magnifying glass to the recent earnings results reported by Southwest Airlines, SkyWest, Allegiant, Republic Holdings, and Pinnacle. Yes, a rather strange mix of subjects this week.

In the case of Southwest Airlines, this quarter's results were a lot noisier than expected, as a result of the way the airline is reporting its numbers --re: merger with AirTran. Revenues were also not as good as had been expected. As one analyst wondered, did the airline push fares higher too hard, too fast in the spring? Whatever -- the airline came in under expectations.

The airline was also one of the few that reported that its "business traveler" revenues showed a softening during the quarter. This was in contrast to what some other airlines reported.

As for the three regional airlines -- it continues to be a period of transition for all three. SkyWest finally admitted what we have thought for six years -- the merger with Atlantic Southeast has never really gone as well as they had anticipated. Now, they are trying to layer the ExpressJet merger on top of ASA.

With Pinnacle, the airline has a totally new executive team to work out the details of merging three airlines together. '

Then there is Republic. The fixed fee basis continues to make money. Just not as much as it used to make because of shrinking margins. Then there is Frontier Airlines. The airline lost a ton of money during the quarter. The restructuring continues.

Finally -- Allegiant Travel also reported earnings last week. Again -- another airline that finds itself in a period of transition. New aircraft types, sharp reductions in capacity as a result of higher fuel prices, new engine overhauling program, ETOPS certification fun, seating modifications to all existing aircraft -- a lot of stuff going on out in Las Vegas.

It was a horrible week for airline stocks last week -- but I agree with a couple of analysts who put out notes Monday and Tuesday. This is a great time to load up on airline stocks. If they are the right ones. Oil has tanked, demand still looks good, fare prices are still good, the airlines got a little revenue bump as a result of the FAA snafu, and well, yeah, airline stock prices have been, for the most part, beaten to a pulp.

We look at break-even load factors and operating margins for the second quarter. Question of the week -- which airline finished dead last in both important metrics?

All of this -- and more in a 160 plus page issue this week. Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. It's that time again. Time for this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter. This week we take our in-depth view at the recent earnings calls and results from Hawaiian Holdings, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue, and the newest member of the U.S. publicly traded airline community -- Spirit Airlines.

Spirit easily blew past analyst expectations for the quarter, and I must admit, it was fun to listen to a call from an airline that has such a very different business plan. Reminds me of when Allegiant first came on the scene. And years before that, Southwest Airlines was the airline that was pushing its lower costs, its "different" business model of simply low fares, and its low cost structure. Now -- the new kid on the low cost, high-growth block is Spirit Airlines.

In addition to our earnings coverage, we spend a lot of time talking about pilots and pilot unions this week. From pilots calling in sick at Continental to ALPA severing a mutually beneficial deal with the Allied Pilots Association that had included the services of a well-respected union negotiator Seth Rosen, as a result of APA hot heads sending out anti-ALPA missives to American pilots -- it has been a very "labor-intensive" week you might say.

But all of this angst pales in comparison to the paperwork that accompanied US Airways' request for a preliminary injunction against its pilot union, USAPA, and the union's President, Michael Cleary.

The suit, which was filed last Friday accuses the pilot union of of "directly instigating the illegal slowdown by encouraging pilots to delay flight departures, not complete certain training requirements, decline to fly on the basis of fatigue, increase maintenance write-ups, and generally slow down in the performance of their duties — and also by threatening to expose and retaliate against those pilots who do not participate in the slowdown. Although USAPA is encouraging pilots to change their behavior under the guise of “safety,” USAPA's own communications confirm the true purpose of its campaign is illegally to slowdown US Airways’ operation in order to gain leverage in contract negotiations."

But it's not all unions and earnings.

Oh no.

Then there is the latest from Washington.

While the people who were elected to Congress finally managed to cobble together some kind of debt ceiling/budget compromise and both the Senate and the House managed to sign off on it, one thing that was not taken care of before both the House and Senate shut down work for the rest of the month was -- a funding authorization bill for the FAA.

That's right.

The bad news is that this means FAA-funded projects across the country will remain stopped in their tracks, more than 4000 FAA employees will remain laid off, and other FAA workers will continue to work more or less on an emergency basis.

But -- on the plus side -- (at least if you are an airline CEO or CFO) this could mean an additional $1.5 billion in revenues for the U.S. carriers -- as a result of the ticket tax not being collected. That is, unless they begin to start rolling out a series of off-the-wall fare wars.  

All this and much, much more in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 1:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. I feel like I need to crank up the theme song from "Rocky" tonight. Yes, it's earnings week here at the Worldwide Headquarters of PlaneBusiness Banter. Or rather, the first of three heavy earnings weeks. Or is it four? Oh, they are so much fun -- who's counting?

This week Alaska, United Continental, AMR and US Airways in-depth earnings reviews are on tap for PBB readers. I know it's hard to believe, given how long some of our earnings reviews have run in the past, but I do believe we may have posted our longest earnings review ever tonight. Alaska's call attracted a lot of analyst attention and they all asked a lot of great questions.

That's what happens when you are an airline and you post a fantastic pretax margin, operating margin, and an even more impressive ROIC. (That's return on invested capital for those of you who are not financial geeks.)

Funny. I can remember quarters in the past when Alaska executives would give their presentations on the airline's earnings call and there were hardly any analysts on the calls asking questions. I used to feel sorry for them.

Things change when you begin running one of the most profitable and well-run airlines in the U.S.

American Airlines? Oh. Earnings. Did the airline report earnings last week? Kind of hard to remember what with all the hoopla the airline generated about its split Airbus/Boeing order of an entire fleet of aircraft. Actually I'm sure the airline would prefer that nobody remembered that they also reported 2Q earnings. And we'll talk about why that is the case.

No question American would much rather we talk about nice new shiny airplanes.

One thing's for sure. Wall Street was not happy with the news about all the nice new shiny airplanes. We give readers a selection of analyst comments to pour over this week -- and the gist of the feedback goes something like this: new airplanes do nothing to change the underlying problems with the current business model or the brand. Or the operational issues. Or the cost issues. Or the continued less-than-industry peer revenue performance.

Much less mounting cash flow issues.

Bu they, don't worry, be happy. I sometimes think that AMR management is convinced the airline is simply "too big to fail." That's a somewhat dangerous assumption to make. Just ask Lehman Brothers.

United Continental is, of course, still in its transition mode, but so far so good. The airline's revenue performance was good in 2Q, but I suspect we are going to see the airline's revenue performance get even better over the next 12 months. My biggest concern with United Continental remains its continuing labor negotiations. Particularly the ones involving the airline's two pilot groups.

Then there is US Airways. Even without fuel hedges, the airline still posted a profit for the quarter. All things considered, that's not a bad thing. However, US Airways also happens to have a rather dysfunctional pilot union that still can't negotiate a seniority agreement, much less a contract. Last week that same union decided to go public with its "safety" concerns at the airline. Uh-huh. Everything new is old again, isn't it?

We also talk about other things this week of course. But I won't spill the beans. That will just have to be a surprise.

Subscribers can access this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter here.

Posted by Holly at 9:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of our very long-time PlaneBusiness Banter subscribers who also happens to fly for AirTran tells us that "things are very hot" in Atlanta as pilots there debate the proposed agreement between AirTran and Southwest Airlines pilots.

So hot that the AirTran ALPA MEC issued this letter this afternoon:

"July 24, 2011

Fellow Pilots,

During a special meeting today, the Master Executive Council voted to temporarily suspend the union web forum. This step was not taken lightly, as the MEC feels that pilots should be free to debate the topics that impact all of us. However, the discourse has become too uncivil at times, and policing the posts too difficult.

The MEC officers and status representatives are still available to answer questions or take feedback, either through their e-mail addresses or cell phones. A complete list of contacts is available at www.airtranpilots.org<http://www.airtranpilots.org>.

Thank you for your understanding.

The AirTran Master Executive Council"

Doesn't matter what negotiation it is. Or what airline. There is no such thing as a "slam-dunk" when it comes to pilots, contracts and .... questions of seniority.

Posted by Holly at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone.

This week in PlaneBusiness Banter I sit down for a PBB Lounge Lizard Interview with one of my favorite people -- Dave Hilfman. Dave is the SVP of Global Sales at the "new" United Airlines. Prior to his current gig, Dave held the same position at Continental Airlines.

We talk corporate sales, red Mazda RX-7 convertibles, Eastern Airlines, Gordon Bethune, Larry Kellner, why some corporate clients are not happy about sharing contract performance information, the United/Continental merger, and you'll meet Dave's son Marshall too.

Tonight, we're waiting to hear the news from AMR in regard to 1) American Eagle and 2) new aircraft. The pilots at American Eagle and AMR came to terms on some sticking points regarding how the pilots would be treated if there was a change of ownership at the airline today. That points to an announcement tomorrow about what AMR intends to do with its regional subsidiary.

The AMR board of directors was meeting today in advance of the airline's second quarter earnings roll out tomorrow. If we were betting, we'd bet that Airbus/Boeing decision was probably made today at that same board meeting.

Meanwhile, over the weekend, it was announced that the Southwest Airlines and AirTran pilots had come to terms on a new seniority agreement. Still have not seen an "official" summary of that agreement. Clearly this is a big deal for the airline. More after we see the fine print.

Airline stocks? Horrible week for them last week.

In the government fun and games division, the DOT rolled out a list of 16 fees it thinks the airlines need to keep track of and report to the government last week. Of course they did this under the guise of it being "passenger friendly." Hogwash. It's so the DOT can force the airlines to account for ancillary revenues in a more clear and concise manner. The easier to tax those revenues -- down the road.

Then we had the bipolar fare increase/fare sale activity over the last couple of days. First United and Delta began an attempt to raise fares last week. It continued through the weekend -- and then Southwest balked.

Then this week Southwest and its new subsidiary AirTran rolled out a new fare sale!

Just another wacky week in the industry we all know and love.

All this and more -- in this week's PlaneBusiness Banter. Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to a representative of SWAPA, the union that represents the Southwest Airlines' pilot union, the top half of the letter that was posted earlier this afternoon is authentic. The bottom part that was posted earlier with supposed agreement "details" was not. Therefore I have removed the post entirely to prevent any further misinformation from being distributed.

Thank goodness. I was trying to figure out how in the world Southwest Airlines was going to order that many planes.

I have asked the SWAPA union representative who contacted me to please forward me an accurate summary of the tentative agreement.

_____________________

July 16, 2011


Fellow Pilots,

This afternoon, the AirTran Merger Committee (MC) reached an agreement-in-principle with SWAPA and Southwest Airlines on a seniority list integration and transition agreement.

This agreement will be presented to the ATN ALPA Master Executive Council for their consideration in the near future. If this agreement is approved by the MEC, it will be presented to the membership for ratification.

The MC will be working in the coming days to translate the current agreement into a full-language document. This will require a great deal of work, and your patience is appreciated as they develop a comprehensive presentation for the MEC and the pilots of AirTran Airways.

The Merger Committee believes that this a fair agreement that provides career protection for AirTran pilots, as well as significant economic gains.

In unity,

Your ATN Master Executive Council

______________________

Posted by Holly at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Atlantic Southeast Airlines sent me an email this afternoon in which the airline admits that perhaps the name "SureJet" was not such a good idea after all.

"Since we value the feedback we’ve received to date, we have put a ground stop on the SureJet name," the airline said.

Yesterday the subsidiary of SkyWest, which is merging with ExpressJet, announced the new name of the combined airline was going to be "SureJet."

To say that the news was met with an unfavorable response from both industry observers and employees alike would be an understatement.

Here's the statement I received this afternoon from Kate Modolo, spokesperson for the airline.

"Atlantic Southeast and ExpressJet on July 13 announced that SureJet would be the new name of our combined airline, once our merger is complete later this year.

We’ve heard our team members’ significant concerns about the new name, and it appears we’ve missed our mark. The No. 1 goal with our new name was to create an identity that represented our people, and that our people would be proud of. Since we value the feedback we’ve received to date, we have put a ground stop on the SureJet name so we can solicit further input from our people, and get this important merger milestone right."

Posted by Holly at 3:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday I received a press release from the nice folks at Atlantic Southeast Airlines, letting me know that after it completes its merger with ExpressJet, the two airlines will be branded and marketing under one -- new-- name for parent company SkyWest.

That name?

SureJet.

Yeah. Sure.

No, I'm not kidding.

I tweeted my disbelief over this horrible god-awful choice yesterday, but the emails kept coming in today, so I figured I'd go ahead and weigh in here on PlaneBuzz, since this platform has a bigger audience of both PlaneBusiness Banter subscribers and non-subscribers.

People I've talked to have, overwhelmingly, and without exception, reacted by shaking their heads, asking me to repeat myself, or simply saying things like 1) it sounds like a household cleaner 2) it sounds like a new maxi-pad 3) it sounds horrible coming off the tongue 3) it sounds like a cynical joke.

I tweeted yesterday that I thought it sounded like something from a Saturday Night Live skit.

One of our PBB subscribers wrote me today and shared this comment,

"SureJet.. . REALLY?! We actually paid someone to come up with this?!

I'm no branding expert, but a name like that doesn't really give me the warm and fuzzies when thinking about, oh I don't know, reliability, completion, prospects, the future... shall I go on?
And oh the possibilities for puns... 'Surely you can't be serious...?'

Word from the presentation was there were audible gasps followed by silence. Brad Holt then bolted up to the mike to declare the name "grows on you." Not quite.

Rumor today is the new brand is quietly being shelved. Wish I could log on to the company website to check, but it's been down all afternoon.... I'm SURE they're working on it. "

Trust me. You don't need to be a marketing or branding expert to know this name needs to be tossed.

"The name grows on you?" Ah. No. Surely Brad Holt, you jest.

Posted by Holly at 1:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Big news this afternoon for former TWA pilots.

The group sued the Air Line Pilots Association in 2002 -- claiming that ALPA had not fairly represented them during the American Airlines/TWA merger. The pilots argued that ALPA had acted in bad faith in regard to negotiations with the Allied Pilots Association (which represents pilots at American) and the eventual seniority list that was created.

Today a federal district court jury in New Jersey ruled in the pilot group's favor, as it agreed the Air Line Pilots Association had "violated its duty of fair representation" to the TWA pilot group.

In addition, the jury agreed with the pilots that ALPA's violation of its DFR "directly caused injury to some of the TWA pilots."

That opens the door to -- damages.

As of now, the amount and extent of damages has not been determined.

Great day for the former TWA pilots. Not such a good day for ALPA.

Posted by Holly at 3:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. This week in PlaneBusiness Banter we're talking about the second quarter earnings season that begins next week. We also give you the complete rundown of the current airline stock target prices -- compliments of the usual airline industry analyst contingent.

We also look at the most recent DOT Airline Consumer Travel Report for May. This month was a real grab bag of results -- with airlines the usually doing well not doing well in certain measures, other doing better than expected -- and then there was American Airlines. And American Eagle. The not-so-dynamic duo were clearly the worst performing airlines of the group. We were so impressed, we were moved to unanimously award the two airlines a tandem "Goat" award for their industry-lagging performance.

That reminds me. You know how airline executives always pepper their comments about how their particular airline has such "industry-leading" performance in this and that? When was the last time you heard someone say their airline is an industry laggard?

The EU is convinced that all the airlines of the rest of the world need to participate in its Emissions Trading Scheme. Needless to say the Air Transport Association, the IATA, and U.S. airlines don't agree. The shrill cry against adding airlines to the list of ETS participating companies rose sharply last week -- along with threats of an all-out trade war.

Last week airline analysts lined up to initiate coverage on shares of Spirit Airlines. Without exception they were all bullish on the shares. Their enthusiasm helped push shares of Spirit up 11% for the week.

Speaking of Wall Street, jet fuel posted a sharp uptick of more than 6% last week, even though the price of crude oil was only up a little more than 1%.

United Airlines pulled out the stops last week as it feted its most traveled frequent flyer. They even named a 747 after him.

On the merger front the proposed LAN/TAM deal is on hold as government regulators take more time to look at possible antitrust implications. I find this rather amusing, since LAN basically owns the Chilean market.

Pinnacle's new CFO used to work for Pinnacle's CEO when he was CEO at Frontier Airlines, Lufthansa is going to start flying passengers on biofuel on Friday, and more.

All in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter .

Posted by Holly at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. This week's holiday week issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Since yesterday was July 4th, you know what that means. That's right --this week's issue includes the legendary 2011 "Ode to a Hot Dog" column.

Aside from our usual July 4th fun and frivolity, we do have some serious business to talk about this week in addition to our yearly review of weenies.

Four major U.S. airlines are now talking to aircraft manufacturers about potential new aircraft orders. We look at what some of the industry's more knowledgeable observers think we could see in terms of new orders.

In Australia, aviation regulators grounded Tiger Airways Australia last week. We talk at length about the reasons for the ruling, the fact that most of the major investors in the airline have essentially cashed out, and why the move by CASA should not have come as a surprise to the airline.

Another week, news of another low-cost airline in Asia. Last week Qantas and Japan Airlines announced that they are forming a joint venture -- the purpose of which is to start a new low-cost Asian airline.

Meanwhile, across the pond, Flybe and Finnair have combined forces purchasing Finnish regional carrier, Finnish Commuter Airlines.

On the labor front, we had two major union representational votes last week. The flight attendants at United Airlines and Continental Airlines went to the ballot box to pick a union representative for their combined group in June. Last week the National Mediation Board announced that the Association of Flight Attendants won the election -- but by a closer vote than I think the AFA had expected.

While over at Republic Holdings, pilots for all of the holding company member airlines voted in favor of one union representative. And which union was that?

In terms of airline stocks, last Thursday marked the end of the second quarter. Which airline stocks performed like champs during the second quarter -- and which ones lagged behind?

We also take a look at the current mean estimates for the usual suspects heading into the second quarter. How has analyst sentiment changed since the end of the first quarter?

Lots of letters to the editor this week, including one of the most unusual notes I've ever received. Hint: It has nothing to do with airlines.

All this -- and more -- in this week's issue of  PlaneBusiness Banter.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 9:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello all. Is everyone ready for the Fourth of July Weekend? Not before you read this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

This week we are talking a lot about what happens when airlines have to deal with stories that go viral with a vengeance.

Last week three airlines had to face situations that forced them to call upon every piece of social media/internet knowledge and expertise they had. US Airways, Southwest, and Delta Air Lines all handled difficult situations differently. What did they do right, what could they have done better?

AMR, UAL, and Delta filed updated second quarter guidance with the SEC. Looks like Delta Air Lines will meet its 10% RASM goal for the quarter, but maintenance costs are running higher than anticipated. Both UAL and AMR said that RASM numbers will come in lower than expected. AMR looks like it will have another sub-peer quarter -- or so says Bank of America/Merrill Lynch analyst Glenn Engel.

The decision by the U.S. and key allies to release 60 million gallons of crude oil announced last week had a huge effect on oil prices and jet fuel last week. That news was responsible for a huge uptick in airline stocks on Thursday. But Friday the second quarter updated guidance sent stocks plummeting. Up down, up down.

It's always something, isn't it?

There was an Air Show last week. In Paris. We'll take a look at the final tallies....but more importantly, has Boeing received the message yet? You know. The message that says, "Airlines want to fly aircraft that save them money."

We talk about Air France/KLM flights that will fly using biofuel this fall, Sir Richard Branson's personal letter to his pilots in which he essentially begs them not to strike, and we wonder whether all the flak concerning American Airlines' new boarding policy is on target or not.

All this and more -- in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter. Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 9:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello earthlings.

Another rough night of weather here in the DFW Metromess. But have no fear. This week's issue of PBB is now posted and a great issue it is. This week we announce the 2011 PlaneBusiness Wild Turkey Award recipient. Drum roll please.

This year the award goes to Bill Ayer, Chairman and CEO of Alaska Air Group.

While PlaneBusiness Banter subscribers are all too aware of the excellent job Alaska is doing on the financial side of the house, very few people know that much about the airline's Chairman and CEO. That's because Bill Ayer wants it that way. He is not one to bask in the spotlight. He prefers his employees do that -- in recognition of their work.

But this week Bill has best be prepared to bask in the spotlight, or at the very least he had best prepare for the delivery of a case of Wild Turkey Rare Breed, compliments of the man for whom this award is named. That's right. Herbert D. Kelleher.

Better known in most circles simply as... Herb.

In addition to our Wild Turkey award column, we have a very active letters section this week in which our subscribers talk about everything from Steve Hazy's business model at ILFC to the TWA pilots lawsuit against ALPA. Oh, and yes, my rant last week on airline marketing and branding, or in most cases, the lack thereof. I post a few of the comments I received this last week on that column, but there are still more coming in. We might have to revisit the topic.

There was some chatter this week concerning the United/Continental pilot negotiations, but as I report tonight, I don't see any positive progress on this front. Later this week ALPA President Lee Moak will be meeting with a joint meeting of the MEC's from both airline pilot groups. How I would love to be a fly on the wall of that session.

On the American Airlines labor front, some good news this week. It sounds like the negotiators for the TWU, which represents the mechanics, and the airline, had a productive mediated session last week, and they have scheduled another meeting for two weeks from now in Dallas.

American and the Allied Pilots Association, also appear to be finally making some headway in their unmediated discussions. Again, good news.

Shares of Air Canada led the airline sector to its first positive week in a long time last week, as shares shot up 15% after the strike against the airline by its customer service employee group came to an end.

Oh. Yeah. There is an air show in Paris this week.

We give you our four quick takes this week on some of the more interesting tidbits we've heard coming out of Paris, and next week we'll wrap up with a full rundown of who announced what. And maybe even...why.

One thing that is certainly clear -- Boeing has best get off its you-know-what and come up with either a replacement aircraft design or an upgrade to its existing 737 product. Airbus now has banked almost 600 orders for its A320neo. Ryanair announced this week it has signed a "design" agreement with Chinese aircraft manufacturer Comac, to help the company design a Boeing 737 replacement aircraft.

As I reported in PBB after the recent Southwest Airlines annual meeting press conference, I don't think I've seen Southwest CEO Gary Kelly respond as tersely as he did that day in answer to the inevitable "any news from Boeing about a 737 replacement aircraft" question.

Earth to Boeing....come in.

Finally, a big thank you to Brett Snyder, aka CrankyFlier . Brett gave us a very nice shoutout this week in his blog about the rant I went on last week concerning the importance of brand, and how some airlines get it, but most do not.

All of this and more in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 11:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Next week -- for only the third time in 14 years -- I will award an airline CEO with the PlaneBusiness Wild Turkey Award. This award is given to an airline CEO in recognition of their excellence in airline management.

Yes, the award is named in honor of Herb Kelleher, former Chairman and CEO of Southwest Airlines.

What does it take to grab one of these (and the case of Wild Turkey Rare Breed whiskey personally delivered compliments of the award's namesake?)

*A dedication to a strong balance sheet.

*An emphasis on a company's employees and the importance of their contribution to the company.

*A position of leadership within the airline community.

*A willingness to take risks -- in an effort to improve an airline's financial and operational success.

*Above all -- a commitment to "do the right thing" in regards to the airline, employees, shareholders, and customers.

That's next week -- in PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Posted by Holly at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A heads-up for all DFW based readers who might want to do something different, yet still airline-related Wednesday morning.

On the agenda tomorrow morning at the Dallas City Council Meeting is a proposal that would see the council rename Cedar Springs Road from Mockingbird Lane to the Dallas Love Field Terminal.

The new name that is going to be proposed? Herb Kelleher Way.

We hear that Mr. Kelleher, the irrepressible ex-CEO of Southwest Airlines, is expected to attend the meeting, which starts at 9 A.M. Location? Council Chambers, City Hall.

No word on whether or not Wild Turkey will be served at the event.

Posted by Holly at 8:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. It's Tuesday night. That means two things. One -- this week's issue of PBB is now posted. Two -- the Mavericks and the Heat are on television. Now. Consequently my summary comments about this week's issue are going to be mercifully brief!

In this week's issue we talk a great deal about lawsuits. Yes, that means we are talking about American Airlines and its escalating legal fight(s) involving Sabre, Travelport, and Orbitz.

Speaking of Orbitz, American Airlines got a rude awakening last week when a court informed the airline that it once again had to provide fare inventory to Orbitz. I somehow don't think American Airlines expected this -- especially considering the airline had just rolled out a new television advertising campaign in which the airline touted the fact that AA.com had American Airlines fares -- and Orbitz did not.

BZZZZT. Surprise!

Another surprise last week? The mechanics at United Airlines turned thumbs down on their highly touted tentative agreement. When I say "highly touted," both the Teamsters and the airline had publicly lauded the deal in March.

So much for that.

We talk about why the deal failed. And why we think the Teamsters probably shoulder a lot of the blame. We also check in with the ongoing pilot negotiations at United.

Airline stocks had another rough week last week, as both employment and housing numbers released last week were nothing short of grim.

Oil prices remained flat last week, as did jet fuel, but fears the U.S. economy could be slowing down took their toll on the sector.

In the good news department, the traffic reports from May that have rolled across the transom already have, for the most part, looked good. Looks like May was a good month overall -- just as those wily airline executives had indicated at the recent Bank of America/Merrill Lynch Global Transportation Conference.

We have a lot of subscriber letters this week, and we also take a retro look back at the offer Donald Trump made for American Airlines in 1989.

All this and more -- in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 7:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. This week I chat with Avondale Partners analyst Bob McAdoo. As you may recall McAdoo recently issued a research report on American Airlines in which he claims the airline is losing more than $10 million annually in revenues in more than 50 different markets.

After I talked extensively about the report in PBB two weeks ago, I received a slew of emails concerning Bob's methodology. This week, I talk to Bob about all this -- and more.

Spirit Airlines finally rolled out the IPO it has been trying to roll out for more than 14 years last week. The result? Not good. Not only could the airline's underwriters not sell all the shares that were available, the price of the deal was marked down as well.

News of the poor showing by Spirit apparently has not deterred yet another low fare North American carrier from moving forward on its plans for an IPO. Can you guess who that is?

We also check in with Bill Greene, analyst at Morgan Stanley. We have the latest results from the last two institutional investor polls that Bill has pushed out. Bill uses the responses to his polls to gauge the views of his investor readership on various topics. What are his readers telling him now about airline stock prices in the next three months?

In other news, we discuss the first official review of the material found on the two recorders that were recovered from the ocean-floor resting place of Air France Flight 447. Contrary to what has been said in a number of media sources, I don't think we've heard all the information there is to be shared, and it is still premature to determine exactly what the sequence of events were that took the plane down. But we certainly knew more than we knew before.

We could have a pilot strike in place against Virgin Atlantic before the end of June. Pilots are voting now on a strike ballot. I would be very, very, surprised if the pilots don't vote to strike the airline. Tentative first dates the airline could be affected: Last week of June.

Oil prices remained stubbornly high last week, a fact that weighed heavily on the airline sector. It was a perfectly horrible week for airline stocks.

All this -- and more -- in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hello everyone!

We are a bit late posting our blog post tonight. PlaneBusiness Banter has actually been posted for awhile. But it's been a rather nasty night here at the Worldwide Headquarters. Had to go offline for a bit. Tornado warnings, tornado sirens, baseball sized hail, rain. Just a lovely evening.

That's okay. It's not Joplin and it's not Tuscaloosa. Still very unsettling though.

Speaking of unsettling, we didn't hear many unsettling comments spoken at the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch Global Transportation Conference last week. Airlines made their way to Boston where analyst Glenn Engel held court. This week I give you a summary of the high points from the Conference and talk a bit about why, even though airline execs continued to sing the praises of continued revenue strength, a number of analysts are convinced the airlines have hit the wall in terms of fare increases and passenger demand pushback.

I was over at Southwest Airlines last week, as the airline held their annual shareholder meeting. After the meeting Chairman, President and CEO Gary Kelly held a press conference. Our take? I think the airline is now fully aware of the challenge it faces with the AirTran merger. It's time to get to work.

In other news, Delta Air Lines and US Airways announced a newly revised slot swap proposal late Monday. Our take on the revised deal? We still like it just as much as we did when the two airlines first proposed the deal almost two years ago.

But I doubt American Airlines likes the deal very much. If the Feds approve the deal, it will give Delta Air Lines a huge leg up on its New York expansion -- as US Airways will hand over 132 slot pairs at LGA to the Atlanta-based airline. In return, US Airways will get $66.5 million in cash and 42 new slot pairs at Washington's DCA. Oh, and rights to fly to Sao Paulo.

The deal will strengthen the network of both airlines. For very little money.

All this and more...in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Okay. I'm going back to the closet.

Posted by Holly at 9:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Good evening earthlings! This week's last mega-earnings issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. This week we dig our way through the recent earnings results and calls from Pinnacle, SkyWest and Republic Holdings. Let me put it this way. This is not an easy time for regional airline operators. Three different stories, three losses.

In other news, we talk a lot this week about why it is I am concerned about the negotiations between the United Airlines and Continental Airlines pilots. This situation has gone on far too long. These negotiations should have been wrapped up in no more than 60 days.

But now negotiations have become centered around the big "S" word. Union squabbling, turf wars, and intra-union power struggles that all go back to ....seniority.

These two groups had a choice going into these negotiations: follow the blueprint set at Delta/Northwest or the blueprint set with America West/US Airways. Every day that passes -- it appears both groups are following the wrong set of plans.

I tell subscribers this week why I believe these negotiations are now at the tipping point.

In other news, we talk this week about two analysts and their respective research reports. First, we talk about Avondale Partners analyst Bob McAdoo's research note on AMR. It was, without a doubt, the most scathing review of the inability of management at the airline to do what it needs to do that I have read from any Wall Street analyst. As he points out -- the airline continues to lose at least $1 billion in revenues as a result of bad decisions.

So -- what are they going to do about it?

Gary Chase, analyst with Barclays, issued a nice preliminary review of what he thinks the Southwest/AirTran deal is going to mean to Southwest. Both short-term and longer-term. We've admired Chase's take on Southwest for years -- and his piece last week was no exception. Opportunity? Yes. But with risks.

We've got the March DOT Air Travel Consumer Report, we'll go over how the airline sector did last week (I'll give you a clue -- jet fuel rose again) and we talk a bit about the upcoming IPO from Spirit Airlines, as well as the results issued Monday from Steve Hazy's new Air Lease Corp.

And more!

Subscribers can access this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter here.

Posted by Holly at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Holly at 8:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. It's that time again. This week's mega 100-plus page issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. This week we take an in-depth look at first quarter earnings and earnings calls from Delta Air Lines, US Airways, JetBlue and Hawaiian Holdings.

Best quote from the earnings calls this week came from Delta CEO Richard Anderson, as he tried to stress to analyst Dan McKenzie with Rodman and Renshaw that the airline is not interested, as are some competitors, in chasing market share. (Wonder who he was talking about?)

No, the airline is very serious about "keeping our capital commitments in check, generating free cash flow, putting that cash flow back on the balance sheet and keeping our capacity in line with what will produce an operating margin."

Richard's follow-up comment: "This isn't a hobby."

Love it.

US Airways posted a good first quarter -- even though the airline has no fuel hedges in place. That's right. None. I love that as well. I think the airline is onto something, i.e., screw fuel hedging. If you run an airline as a well-managed business, you should be able to manage your expenses and revenue through capacity changes.

That goes back to the Delta mantra they kept emphasizing throughout its call as well. Essentially, if a route is not making money -- it's going to go away. Chasing market share is stupid. Managing for profits and margins is smart.

We also take an extended look at the recent results from both JetBlue and Hawaiian Holdings. Two very different airlines -- two very different business plans. JetBlue continues to grow -- and its dominant-carrier Boston presence speaks to that point. Hawaiian has decided to grow long-haul to the West, including new routes to Japan. How are the new routes faring? Hint: The airline will probably post a loss in the second quarter.

We talk about all of this, we muse about whether or not the death of Osama Bin Laden will eventually let us walk away from TSA Security Theatre, and well, of course we talk about Kate's dress as well!

All this and more -- in this week's jam-packed issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 8:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone.

This week's 120-plus page earnings issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Yes, it's that time again. This week we have our in-depth analysis of the first quarter earnings results and earnings calls from American Airlines, Alaska Air Group, Southwest Airlines and United/Continental. Oh, and we have a PlaneBusiness Earnings Summary for JetBlue as well. We'll do our in-depth look at them next week -- along with US Airways, Delta Air Lines and Hawaiian Airlines.

Short and sweet? The worst performance last week was clearly posted by AMR. Best overall performance was turned in by Alaska Air Group.

No wonder AMR announced it was going to hold its annual shareholder meeting in Los Angeles next month. That's right. The airline doesn't want to hold it in Dallas -- because they know there will be a huge turnout of unhappy employees.

I bet there are a fair number of unhappy employees who turn up in L.A. anyway. But let's face it -- LAX is not a huge American Airlines operation. The turnout will undoubtedly be much smaller than if they held it here in the DFW Metroplex.

But we talk about other stuff this week as well. The NTSB issued an update on its investigation of the Southwest Airlines' aircraft that popped its top. Interesting reading that was. Are misshapen rivet holes a production issue, or some kind of metal fatigue problem? Either way -- it looks like Boeing has some problems here.

Then there is the ongoing air traffic control mess with the FAA. As expected the agency has responded to a spate of recent sleeping controller incidents by issuing some typical knee-jerk reaction responses. This is not a knee-jerk problem.

The deep-seated FAA/air traffic controller problems have been there for years. This is not about naps.

Can FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt finally do the hard work and solve the problems? We know he can. He's got the labor negotiation background to pull it off. But does he want to?

US Airways filed a lawsuit against Sabre last week -- the latest salvo in the airline/GDS wars. We have a copy of the actual filing for subscribers to peruse. Interesting reading.

In our "Retro Moment of the Week" we take a look at comments former airline analyst Sam Buttrick made about consolidation in 2000. How do they stack up in hindsight?

We also look at Rodman and Renshaw analyst Dan McKenzie's latest capacity analysis. Which airlines are moving capacity out of what markets -- and which airlines are looking at more competitive capacity moves in the second quarter?

Oh, and what airline merger does Dan think is a strong possibility?

All of this and more in this week's large and unwieldy issue of PlaneBusiness Banter. Subscribers can access the issue here.

Posted by Holly at 8:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. This week's issue is one of those "kitchen sink" issues. First we peer into the financial reports of the four largest airline pilot unions -- ALPA, APA, SWAPA and USAPA -- spurred by my wonderings about just how much the US Airways' pilot union, USAPA, is paying out in legal fees. Boy, did I open a nice big Pandora's box. Who says we only have to dissect the financial statements of the airlines?

Then there is American Airlines. No, the airline is apparently not in talks to do a deal with Mexicana, even though press reports south of the border indicated otherwise over the weekend.

Meanwhile, tomorrow is not only the day that American Airlines announces its first quarter loss. It is also protest day for American employees. Concurrent with the airline's executive level bonus allocations, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants are going to be protesting -- and I would bet there will be some other airline employees contributing to the effort.

On the corporate travel front, American filed suit against Travelport and Orbitz last week. They even dropped the "Sherman" antitrust bomb in their filing. Yep, American thinks there is some anti-trust issues here. Travelport and Orbitz, not surprisingly, think this is merely a play for leverage.

Speaking of earnings, we have a line-up of heavyweights on Thursday, followed by another heavy day next Tuesday. We get you up to date on analyst expectations and reporting dates.

If it is time for first quarter earnings, then Proxy Statements are also in the mix. Those are those horribly confusing and hard-to-figure out SEC filings that tell us just how much the top executives at the airlines took home in compensation during 2010.

Southwest Airlines filed their proxy statement last week, and, well, let's just put it this way. Remember when the airline used to have the lowest top-tier compensation levels in the industry -- and they made a big deal about the fact this was the case? And they were proud of the fact? It's not the case anymore.

Oh, we talk about that, we talk about how airline stocks did last week, we talk about the TSA's patdown of the six-year-old, we alert you to a museum collection of air sickness bags, and we talk about a lot more -- in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 7:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Good evening earthlings! This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

This week I talk a lot about US Airways. For good reason. I attended the airline's "Unplugged" Media Day last week. The airline used the occasion to announce it is upgrading its regional airline fleet with first class cabins. But that was not the only news to come out of Tempe. We'll give you the low down.

That doesn't mean we're done talking about Southwest Airlines and its recent fuselage problem. Nor have the late night talk show hosts.

Last week Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly and American Airlines CEO Gerard Arpey both sat down with Terry Maxon from the Dallas Morning News at the SABEW Conference in Dallas. Gary talked about the Southwest incident and Gerard talked about the recent bogus offer to buy the airline from that outfit in Florida. Yes, as we assumed, the SEC is looking into it.

Speaking of Dallas, the DOT reported its February Air Travel Consumer Report last week. As expected, it was not a good month for airlines based in Dallas. (February ....ice...snow...Superbowl on ice.)

Expedia and American Airlines kissed and made up this week. But this news leaves a lot of very ragged and messy things to clean up on the corporate travel terrain. We like TheBeat's Jay Campbell's take on the news. We'll share his take with you.

While pilots for United and Continental Airlines keep working on a new contract, all is not apparently warm and fuzzy on the United Airlines pilot side of the house. Reports say that there was a recall vote originally scheduled for Monday's UAL ALPA MEC meeting. The intended victim? The pilot's current MEC Chairwoman, Captain Wendy Morse.

Meanwhile the flight attendants at American Airlines offered up a deal for the airline. An immediate 6% raise for its members -- and the rest of the contract details would be tabled for 18 months. The airline said no.

Speaking of American -- April 20 is just around the corner. That's the day you can expect to see protests from airline employees over the airline's latest PUP bonus distributions.

We talk also take a look this week at just how much additional revenue and/or capacity cuts the airlines would need to make -- in order to cover the current price of fuel for the remainder of the year. That's a sobering chart. Thanks to Dahlman Rose analyst Helane Becker for the analysis.

As always, all this, and more in this week's issue.

Subscribers can access the issue here.

Posted by Holly at 9:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello all. This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. As I write this, I am literally throwing things into my bag, on my way to Phoenix for this year's Media Day event at US Airways, so I am going to be a bit shorter than usual with our weekly summary.

This week I wrap up coverage of the recent JP Morgan Transportation Conference with a look at the presentations from JetBlue and Alaska Air Group. Did you realize that Alaska does not finance its Boeing 737 aircraft? It pays cash for them. And hey, we aren't talking about cheap MD-90s like Allegiant buys either.

Of course we talk a lot this week about the latest "hole in the roof" problem that Southwest Airlines experienced last week. Thankfully, after a one foot by five foot gash opened up in the roof of one of its flights, the pilots were able to land the airplane safely in Yuma, AZ.

While the airline was quick to say the issue was not related to the problem the airline identified as a result of the last fuselage skin rupture, it does now appear that the two aircraft do have something in common. They are both "older process" 737-300s that also happen to have more than 30,000 cycles.

That "older process" is the interesting part, because apparently Boeing changed the way the airplanes were built at some point along the line -- and specifically in regard to a part of the aircraft's structure that is now in the spotlight.

On the financial side, this week I had a chance to talk to Paul Jacobson, SVP of Finance, Treasurer, at Delta Air Lines. I appreciated him taking the time to talk to me. The subject of our discussion? How Delta Air Lines manages its cash. Inexpensively. Last week we posted a graph that looked at revenues/cash on hand at the end of the year, and Delta looked a bit, well, weak in that particular comparison. We knew the airline's revenues were not what they should be, and that was part of the problem. But what else was going on?

Now we know. And we also know that Delta uses a cash management strategy that only one other airline uses. Know what it is? We do. And we share that with subscribers this week.

We talk a bit about British Airways this week. The airline's flight attendants look like they are going to strike the airline again, former CEO Willie Walsh received a nice bonus prior to moving into his new digs as head of IAG, and the airline is considering an equity investment in JAL.

April Fools Day was Friday and a slew of airlines jumped into the foolish fray. Which airline's efforts were genuinely funny and which were, well, just plane lame?

We also have our review of the first quarter airline stock performance. Short and sweet? Pretty ugly reading.

All this and more in this week's issue of PBB. Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Bye!

Posted by Holly at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We dashed off a quick tweet about this hot topic last night, which I thought conveyed my sentiments regarding this hoopla surrounding a potential "deal" for AMR, parent of American Airlines. I made the point that I questioned any "offer" that was addressed to one "Gerald" Arpey. Not "Gerard" Arpey.

In a nutshell -- I was implying that you should go back to whatever you were doing before you got sidetracked with news of this nonsense.

But, because I've received so many emails in the last 12 hours about it, I figured a blog post might help to quell any remaining hysteria.

So, my updated take? Same as last night.

For those of you who are in the dark, yesterday some outfit called Sterling Global Holdings sent out a number of letters to media types in which it said it was offering $9.75 a share for AMR. That amount represented about a 50% premium over AMR's closing price on Tuesday.

The person who actually sent the letter is someone by the name of Al Weintraub. He claims he is an AMR shareholder. While we still don't know if that is true or not, he does seem to be a man with a checkered past, as this post at stockpatrol.com details. It seems the SEC is not one of his fans.

No need to duplicate the excellent detective work by Dallas Morning News reporter and AirlineBiz blogger Terry Maxon, who has been all over this from the very beginning. You can read his various missives on this subject at his blog, particularly here.

My final comment? For those of you who remember these kinds of things, this reminds me of the "mystery" buyers with the money that was tied up in various banks who were going to do a deal for TWA.

Uh-huh. Right.

Okay, everyone can now go back to whatever it is you were doing before all of this hit the fan.

Meanwhile those of us who find this kind of stuff entertaining will try to figure out if this guy was trying to get the stock to move, was simply bored, is crazy, or just likes to stir people up for the fun of it.

Posted by Holly at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. This week we talk a lot about what all the folks from the airlines were talking about last week as they made their way up to New York and the JP Morgan Transportation Conference.

All the usual suspects were there, including United/Continental, US Airways, JetBlue, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Alaska Airlines and Southwest Airlines.

It was a little preview of sorts of first quarter earnings, which are, in case you haven't kept up, are right around the corner. In fact, the first quarter ends Thursday.

I know. Where did it go?

It was fun to listen to Jeff Smisek talk about the "new" United. As I tell subscribers, the more he talked, the more it simply sounded like the "old" Continental to me. But that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Gary Kelly talked a lot about what Southwest has been trying to do for the last five years, and what it hopes to accomplish in the next two years. He also uttered that positively horrible phrase when talking about the AirTran deal. Yes...he talked about "harvesting those synergies."

Aaaaaccccck!

Meanwhile the folks at Delta Air Lines were reassuring investors that yes the revenues have been a little on the low side (speaking of those elusive synergies) but that the airline was going to concentrate this year on improving them.

As for American, the airline didn't announce any further capacity cuts at the conference -- an omission that had one Wall Street analyst fuming last week.

Then there was US Airways' President Scott Kirby. He said in New York that he saw revenue strength during the first quarter that was stronger than he has ever seen during his career.

That's saying something.

Aside from the presentations in New York, we take a good look this week at the cash/revenues ratio for the major US airlines we track on a regular basis. It's interesting to see who ends up above the average line and who ends up below. And what is more remarkable is the wide variance between the airline with the worst cash/revenue performance and the airline that posted the best for 2010.

Airline stocks also had a pretty good week last week. Except for shares of Air Canada, which took the Goat of the Week award.

In other news we talk about the FAA reauthorization bill that is now set for a House vote this week, and the latest critical analysis that looks at the DOT's three-hour rule and why it isn't what it's cracked up to be.

Alaska Airlines suffered a nasty computer outage Saturday. That was not good. But as we discuss at length, the airline dealt with the problem in a superb manner. Kudos to the airline for a great job in terms of keeping customers informed and in the loop.

As usual, there is all this and more in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter. Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 12:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello to all on what is a rare dark and rainy night here in what is usually the Valley of the Sun.

Yes, yours truly is back in Phoenix this week, having come out for the 28th Annual ISTAT Conference last week which was held at the Westin Kierland in Scottsdale.

No surprise then that this week we are talking a lot about airlines, airplanes, how to finance those airplanes, the people who finance those airplanes, the people who sell the airplanes, and the people who lease airplanes.

You want a primer on airline EETCs and why they are one of the best investments on the planet? We sit down and talk to JP Morgan's Mark Streeter -- who gives us the skinny on why airline EETCs deserve more respect. (Especially from rating agencies.)

But we also update you on the industry impact from the situation in Japan. There has been a lot of news since last time we updated subscribers, including updated impact statistics from IATA.

No surprise either that with all that was going on last week, jet fuel prices continued to rise.

In the midst of Japanese angst and aircraft design drama, Phil Trenary, CEO of Pinnacle Airlines, announced his departure from the airline last week -- effective the end of this week. Hello?

In this week's Market Review, we update you on the short interest situation with the airline stocks. We give you a snapshot look as well as a trailing 12 month view. Doesn't matter how you slice and dice it though, one airline stock continues to get hammered by the shorts.

Know which one it is?

As many of you know, the level of stock shorting is what we call a "sentiment indicator." While it's nothing official, an airline CFO or CEO certainly doesn't like it when the investor community begins to increase their short positions in your stock. Kind of like being tracked by the grim reaper. "Who are these guys and what do they know?"

As I said, we'll update you on all that in this week's issue as well as a whole lot more.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 8:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello to all on this rather sunny Sunday here at the Worldwide Headquarters.

PlaneBusiness Banter is posted a bit early this week, as yours truly is headed West to the Valley of the Sun later today. It's time for the 28th Annual ISTAT Conference and this year it is being held in Scottsdale, AZ. What is ISTAT you ask? It is the trade association for those who make their living leasing, buying, and selling airplanes. You know, those metal things we voluntarily put ourselves into from time to time.

It's always one of our favorite industry events to attend. I'm looking forward to it.

Yes, there was an earthquake that hit Japan last week. We talk this week a bit about how that has affected not only the Japanese airline industry, but how major international airlines who fly to Japan have been affected as well.

We're also talking about the latest DOT Air Travel Consumer numbers. January was a very good month for the airlines -- and their passengers. Except for one glaring category. Guess which one that was. And yes, it's directly related to the DOT's Three-Hour Rule.

Airline stocks had a very good week last week, as investors shrugged off concerns over higher fuel prices -- but yet another fare increase that American Airlines tried to put into place failed as the week ended.

Spirit Airlines is up to no good again -- as the airline rolled out a "Charlie Sheen" inspired ad. Meanwhile Allegiant Air is proposing a "variable rate" fare which would be finalized on the day of departure -- based on that day's fuel cost.

We talk a lot about airplanes and Wi-Fi this week. Will Boeing announce a new twin-aisle narrow body at the Paris Air Show this year? Is Wi-Fi making some Honeywell instruments go haywire in Boeing 737s? Did Aircell just blow up Row 44's chance at long-term survival?

Never a dull moment around here.

All that -- and more -- in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The price of jet fuel continues to rise, airlines continue to announce capacity pullbacks, American announces a $1 billion debt deal, and Southwest Airlines' Rapid Rewards members still can't figure out why their accounts show zero credits.

Just another lovely and enchanting week with the Things with Wings.

This week we're talking about the IT misery at Southwest, as well as the airline's strange silence concerning the issue when it hit last week. Why did the airline wait so long to publicly acknowledge the problems? And whose bright idea was it to zero out customer's RR balances -- until a customer uses their account?

It was not a pretty sight, and if the usual online travel haunts are to be believed, the angst has still not been squelched.

Then we had the big announcement from American Airlines this morning. The airline is going to the debt trough -- to the tune of $1 billion. Hey, the airline has a slew of debt coming due this year -- not to mention a lot of new shiny metal that has to be paid for. The airline had to do something. It certainly wasn't going to generate it through earnings.

United Airlines became the latest airline to announce a pull back in capacity Monday, while then there is the goofy lawsuit that a group of former Northwest Airlines' flight attendants filed against Delta Air Lines last week.

You know -- if you are going to fight the airline on the union representational vote -- thus holding up the results of the election -- why then is the AFA supporting a suit alleging the airline has "withheld" benefits from the former Northwest FA's? If AFA wants its former members to get the same salaries and benefits as their original Delta counterparts, drop the representational lawsuit.

Whew.

We also have an interview this week with Brett Snyder. Many of you know Brett, AKA Cranky Flier. Well, it seems that Brett recently traveled to Washington, where he participated in an American Bar Association panel discussion concerning passenger rights. Not surprisingly the three-hour tarmac rule was discussed heavily, as there was a representative of the DOT on the panel. Read our interview with Brett and see how it went when Brett and others on the panel challenged the DOT's contention that the three-hour rule is, overall, a win-win.

Hint: It has something to do with increased numbers of flight cancellations. And the total number of inconvenienced passengers just one airline has experienced as a result of increased cancellations.

On the financial analysis side, we take a look at the new hot metric being thrown around the industry -- ROIC. Which airlines outperformed their peers in 2010 and which ones lagged?

As usual, we have a whole lot more. So what are you waiting for? Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello earthlings. This week in PlaneBusiness Banter we are, of course, talking fuel prices. Jet fuel prices to be exact. New York Harbor Jet closed today at $3.22/gallon. Have you filled up your Boeing 737-800 lately? Yes, well, if you have -- you can understand why the airline industry is having its own equivalent of an anxiety attack.

Today American Airlines became the second major US carrier to announce a reduction in its capacity forecast for the year. (JP Morgan analyst Jamie Baker has to be sooo happy with this news -- after the hard time he gave the airline about their capacity plans in the airline's fourth quarter earnings call.) Delta already reduced its numbers in February.

Who will be next?

We also have our in-depth earnings call review this week for both SkyWest and Republic Holdings -- our last two US airline industry earnings calls for the fourth quarter.

Calls for both airlines were quite interesting, but I have to say, I did not realize that ....well, I'll keep what I was surprised about in the SkyWest call a surprise. You'll just have to read.

We also talk about the fourth quarter numbers that a number of Asian carriers posted last week including Air Asia, Malaysia, and Tiger Airways.

We also take a look at US industry revenues for the fourth quarter this week. If you want a graphical look at how revenues in this industry are consolidating -- your search has ended with this week's issue.

Also -- do you know the difference between a "weighted average" and normal average? If you frequently look at summaries about various industry metrics, it might be a good idea if you knew what the difference was. There -- that's our small effort at financial education for the week.

Airline stocks? Can we change the subject please? With crude oil prices up more than 13% on the week and jet fuel up 8% -- it was a horrible week for the sector. Shares of Air Canada posted the biggest loss of the double-digit loser group.

As always, all this and more -- in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 9:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Rajat Gupta, former head of McKinsey and Co., and former Goldman Sachs board member, with insider trading. The charges were filed in a civil administrative proceeding filed by the SEC's Division of Enforcement.

What does this have to do with airlines? Gupta is a member of the AMR Board of Directors. AMR is the parent of American Airlines.

After the news broke today, Gupta voluntarily resigned from the Proctor and Gamble BOD.

According to the complaint, Gupta provided insider knowledge to Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam "about companies in which he was a board member," according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal says that specifically mentioned in the complaint are tips Gupta provided about upcoming earnings results for Proctor and Gamble and Goldman Sachs. He is also accused of also tipping off Raj Rajaratnam about a $5 billion investment in Goldman by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway company.

Posted by Holly at 5:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New York Harbor Jet picked up another 13 cents in trading today. Closed at $3.22/gallon.

Last week Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly said the airline would not reassess its capacity plans unless fuel hit $3.30 a gallon. Looks like that day could come sooner than he had anticipated.

Meanwhile, American Airlines became the second major US carrier (behind Delta who did so in February) to announce a cutback in 2011 capacity as a result of higher fuel prices.

Posted by Holly at 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's Tuesday. The Libyans are shooting at each other. Do you know where your favorite airline stock closed today? You don't want to know. Do you know how much the price of oil increased today? Jet fuel? Ditto.

Today was an airline industry CFO's worst nightmare.

In this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter I talk about the current goings-on in the Middle East and just how much of an impact these events could have on airline financial results in the short term.

Before the people in Libya began shooting at each other, though, there were a lot of other things that happened last week that we will be talking about as well.

First, we talk in-depth about the fourth quarter earnings results and the fourth quarter earnings call for Pinnacle Airlines Corp. The airline is in the middle of a major transformation of itself. First it is taking three separate airlines and ending up with only two airlines. In addition, the airline's contract with Delta Air Lines will not compensate the airline for its higher pilot contract costs (the TA was just ratified by all three pilot groups last week) until much later in the year. As a result, the numbers going forward into 2011 are going to be kind of ugly. Until all of this is sorted out.

But the business plan remains the same, the airline continues to build its Q400 fleet, and well, we'll give you the lowdown.

In other news, the FAA held its forecasting forum last week in DC. Not a whole lot of news from the forum, but the FAA does forecast very slow growth continuing in the US domestic market for years to come.

On the international side, meanwhile, the IATA said last week that it expects international airline profits to decline 40% in 2011, down from 2010's $15 billion plus figure.

We take a look at comparisons of operating margins and break-even load factors for the fourth quarter this week. Three airlines took the top three positions in each metric. Know which ones they were?

Air fare hikes? Oh yes, we talk about those too. Ones that failed, and ones that appear to have "taken." You know the rest of the industry denizens are happy when Southwest Airlines rolls out a fare increase. And that is exactly what happened on Friday.

Airline stocks were fairly quiet last week -- the calm before the storm I suppose you could say.

Anyway, as usual, all this and more -- in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Subscribers can access this week's issue by clicking here.

Posted by Holly at 8:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone.

This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Subscribers can access it here.

This week we're talking in-depth about the recent earnings call from WestJet and Air Canada. Our short and sweet take? WestJet posted a great quarter, and I was glad to hear the airline has deferred six aircraft deliveries. Our biggest beef with the airline over the last year has been its reluctance to cut back on capacity.

As for Air Canada, a funny thing happened during the call. Not once did any member of the airline's management team ever talk about the airline's net income for the quarter. Never.

Oh, but they talked about EBITDAR. A lot.

A good-enough quarter for the airline, but the airline's RASM results disappointed. In addition, looking forward, the airline has a number of cost pressures on the horizon, including the fact that every one of its employee labor contracts come up for renewal in the first part of this year.

This week - Pinnacle Airlines reports on Thursday, with SkyWest and Republic bringing up the rear next week.

We talk about the December DOT Airline Consumer Report this week. JetBlue had a horrible December on-time performance. Hey, if you are based out of JFK, you pay the price when Mother Nature gets cranky.

The drama factor kicked up over at the Allied Pilots Association last week as first the new President of the APA sent out a missive in which he basically said the union has been its own worst enemy. Even though his take was spot-on, we all know what happens to union leaders who dare speak the truth. And, in no short order, various domicile reps began issuing their own take on the situation. Not surprisingly, some of them didn't exactly share the same sentiment. We've got the excerpts.

The FAA recently reported an alarming uptick in the number of "near-misses" year-over-year. Is this really as bad as it seems, or is it just due to changes in the way the FAA is reporting these incidents?

By the way, you remember what the late great George Carlin called a "near miss?" A "near-hit."

All this and a whole lot more -- including which two airline stocks just posted eyebrow-raising increases in the percentage of short interest. Anyone want to take a guess as to which two airlines we are talking about?

Ciao.

Posted by Holly at 9:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Good afternoon earthlings. How is everyone today?

As of right now, things here at the Worldwide Headquarters are hunky-dory. However, as you can see by this lovely graphic, that is about to change. Sigh. Enough already.

This is how the weather map looks now.

This is what is forecast for tomorrow morning.

However, before the ice and snow arrives once again and we have to perhaps endure more rolling blackouts, it's time to talk about this week's issue of ...PlaneBusiness Banter! Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

This week we take our usual in-depth look at the recent earnings calls and results from both Hawaiian Airlines and Allegiant Travel Co. Our overall assessment of both carrier's results? Both airlines are in "transition" modes. Translation? I wouldn't jump into either stock right now. Too many costs on the horizon.

We also talk about the Raymond James Growth Airline Conference, which was held last week in New York. The conference welcomed two newcomers to the fray -- Delta Air Lines and Alaska Air Group.

As most of you know by now, Delta Air Lines took the opportunity to talk about its decision to reduce its capacity -- a decision that was universally cheered by the Wall Street community.

However, as of today, we have not heard any news from any other airlines in regard to them doing the same -- a situation that one airline analyst finds quite frustrating. So much so that he slashed his estimates on most of the legacy airlines last week as a result.

As Jamie Baker, analyst with JP Morgan wrote, given the rise in the price of fuel and the apparent "push back" that airlines may now be feeling as a result of a fare increase that fell apart last week, reductions in capacity are the answer. Sooner rather than later.

Speaking of those fare increases, while the across the board fare increase attempt sputtered last week, this morning United/Continental decided to stop abusing the leisure class, and instead they announced fare increases for both first class and business class passengers. The increases were matched almost immediately by competitors American and Delta Air Lines.

This fare increase has a much better chance of "sticking" because Southwest does not compete with the first class and business class fare buckets -- so unlike last week when Southwest proved to be the spoiler, this increase will probably hold.

In other news, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz) tacked on an amendment to the FAA reauthorization bill last week that would effectively kill the Essential Air Services program. Was this just a political play for headlines? Or is he serious?

On another front, the American Eagle ALPA MEC Chairman, Tony Gutierrez, issued a letter last week outlining where the regional carrier is in terms of its relationship to AMR. We had a number of AE-related emails this week and this is why. We talk about this a bit this week, and oh yes, public kudos to Tony. This letter that he wrote to the AE pilots was one of the most thorough letters of its type I've ever read from a union leader to his troops.

All this and more...in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 6:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone.

This week's 100-plus page issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Subscribers can access it here.

This week we take a very detailed look at the earnings calls and earnings reports from US Airways, Alaska Air Group, United/Continental and JetBlue.

And yes, as far as we can tell, PBB is the only place, aside from the usual top end financial websites that charge $50-$75 a shot, that you can find earnings call transcripts for both Alaska AIr Group and United/Continental.

Not only that, but you get selected analyst comments on each airline and our take as well.

So what was our take on the results? I'll give you just a taste. I think the Five-Year plan at Alaska Air Group has been a huge success as the airline posted an outstanding quarter and a great year. US Airways also posted an excellent quarter and year -- and remember US Airways is the only major airline that does not hedge its fuel purchases. I think this is phenomenal. But when you listen to the airline's President Scott Kirby explain the decision, and how expensive it is to hedge fuel these days, and you look at the money the airline made last year and last quarter, well -- hey, I like it.

UAL/Continental had a good quarter, and guidance for January was outstanding. We expect continued revenue improvement here as the Continental folks begin to optimize the airline's network and its aircraft. But as we all know, this is now the latest industry rehabilitation and improvement project. Just as we did with Delta and Northwest, it will be awhile before we know just how those "synergies" are going to shake out.

Then there was JetBlue. Yes, the airline did not have a great fourth quarter. But I don't see this as a major indicator of any overriding problem. However, because so much of the airline's business is based out of Boston and New York -- the more snow and weather events that hit the East Coast in the first quarter -- the more the airline will be tagged.

But we have lots more to talk about than U.S. airline earnings. We also talk about Singapore's numbers which were released last week, as well as LAN Airlines' quarterly results.

Oh, and subscribers can also enter our "Retro Quote" Contest this week. Tell me what industry person said the quote and in what year they said it -- and a geeky airline-related present will wing its way to you.

For those of you in the Chicago area, please be careful out there tonight and tomorrow. We are getting subscriber reports tonight that sound rather ominous.

For us in the DFW Metroplex, ice, sleet, and snow welcomed us this morning. Tonight? We're headed to 7 degrees.

So much for all those swanky Superbowl events that have been scheduled for the outdoors. A number of the large "party tents" that various groups had put up to house events were brought down by ice and snow today, and I think the guys here for ESPN are going to go out and buy electric handwarmers, long johns and ear muffs before they go back outside to their glorifed "tent" environs in downtown Ft. Worth tomorrow.

Flight cancellations? Last check says that more than 8000 flights have now been canceled on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday across the U.S. But that number is going to go up tomorrow.

Yee haw. Where's that damn groundhog?

Posted by Holly at 10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Good evening everyone.

This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Subscribers can access this week's 80-plus page issue here.

It's that time of year. Yep. Earnings time.

This week we have our in-depth look at the earnings calls and our PlaneBusiness Earnings Summaries for Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, and Delta Air Lines.

If you are wondering why it was that airline stocks took a header last week -- it was not because of higher oil prices. It was because Wall Street was not overly impressed by the earnings posted by Delta, or Southwest -- much less American Airlines.

American, once again, is slated to be the only major airline which will not post a profit for the quarter -- much less the year.

In the case of Delta, analysts were disappointed by the airline's revenues, and by the fact the airline says, at least for now, that it intends to keep its existing plans for capacity growth intact.

Southwest Airlines also warned that revenue "head winds" are going to be tough in the first quarter and a profit for that airline for the first quarter is "iffy" if you look across the sector analysts' current estimates. The airline also forecast a rather sharp increase in costs for the first quarter.

As for American, I don't know where to start. As I tell my subscribers in more detail, I think the AMR earnings call was an embarrassment. Add that to the fact that the airline continues to lose money and we heard nothing whatsoever in the airline's call in regards to a specific plan to turn the airline around and .....it's pretty ugly.

Meanwhile, on the American/GDS War frontline, American and Sabre called a truce Monday. Not unexpected. I was surprised when Sabre threw its hissy fit and pulled American's fares from its GDS. No way Sabre's customers were going to let this situation remain in effect.

Truce is officially until June 1 -- we'll see something negotiated between the two before then.

American also announced a new deal with Priceline, which allows Priceline to use the airline's new "Direct Connect" product. (And yes, this deal was announced before the truce with Sabre, which leads me to believe it was done to push Sabre back to the table -- which is what happened.)

US Airways also announced a new deal with another OTA, Expedia, but that deal uses the more traditional GDS method of delivery. It will allow Expedia to market "seat choice" options and other goodies though.

Meanwhile, we did our own little test today of what showed up and at what price when I Iooked up fares between Dallas and LGA on both Expedia and Priceline. That was a fun experiment.

Our new "Retro" feature this week takes us back to 1994, and British Airways. And the billion dollars plus it invested in airlines such as USAir, TAT, and Deutsche BA. That strategy really didn't work out too well for the airline, did it?

But enough of all this fun and frivolity. This week the emphasis is on earnings. Next week, we'll be taking a gimlet-eyed view of United/Continental, US Airways, Alaska, and JetBlue -- all of whom report this week.

Speaking of Alaska Airlines -- did they not blow the doors off in the fourth quarter or what? I remain tremendously impressed with the airline. I like the decision to de-brand Horizon as well.

But that's for next week.

Meanwhile, all the rest -- and more! -- in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 7:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone.

This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Subscribers can access it here.

This week we have a pretty good issue. Always takes us a week to get back in the groove after the holidays, and this week I think we have a little bit of something for everybody.

No question that the thrill of new metal hung over the industry last week as Delta Air Lines told its employees it is looking at new aircraft options. While Continental/United did not tell its employees that it too has been checking its bank balances and kicking some tires, industry sources confirm that yes, this is also the case.

Then there was that obscene order placed by IndiGo Airlines -- based in India. It was, according to Airbus, the largest commercial aircraft order ever place. A whole slew of A320s, including a nice stable of the new "neo" flavor A320. You know, the ones with the more efficient engine.

But Airbus didn't stop there. Oh no, they are clearly in their "Let's Hammer The Boys at Boeing" mode as they also announced a new A320 order from Virgin America. One that also, conveniently, was signed at the stroke of midnight on Dec. 29. (I'm making up the part about the stroke of midnight, but I'm probably not that far off.)

The result of all this? Airbus looks to now have a nice solid start to its "neo" program, and oh yes, the Virgin order pushed Airbus past Boeing in the all-important testosterone-fueled exercise called, "Who sold more airplanes in "________." Fill in the year.

For 2010, it looks like Airbus nosed out Boeing, 644 to 625.

Not surprisingly, given all this hoopla about new metal, Steve Hazy's Air Lease Corp. filed its S-1 with the SEC last week. Translation: They are going to do an IPO.

Of course the American Airlines/GDS cat fight continued last week, with one very interesting new tidbit. In last week's PlaneBusiness Banter I talked with subscribers about how I wondered if there was not more going on between American and ITA than met the eye.

Well, looks like I was right, as American announced a new deal with ITA (American is already a client) for a nice chunk of work with American's new IT overhaul -- which is being spearheaded by HP.

We update subscribers on all the latest GDS related news, and we also share a guest column this week from Montie Brewer, ex-Air Canada CEO. He gives us his take on the GDS/airline situation. (Yeah, I know. Bet you can't guess which side of the fence he's on.)

We also have a longish Market Review this week. We bring subscribers up to speed with the latest research reports from three analysts -- Jamie Baker and Mark Streeter with JP Morgan; Glenn Engel with Bank of America and Dan McKenzie with Hudson Securities.

All three have different takes -- and different things to say -- and in the case of Glenn, he gives us part three of his ongoing research series in which he compares airlines on the basis of revenue and cost per plane. None of the usual RASM, CASM stuff. His first two reports last year covered revenues of the major and regional carriers. This latest report covers the costs of the major carriers.

Interesting way to look at the same numbers.

All this and more in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We're baaack!

Hello everyone. It's that time again. Time for the first issue of PlaneBusiness Banter in 2011.

What topics are front and center for our first issue of the year?

Airline stocks.

Which airline stocks outperformed the group for 2010? I'll say this -- it was a great year for those who took the plunge and invested in the sector. We had four stocks we cover post gains of more than 100%, with one almost hitting a 200% return mark. The vast majority of stocks we track posted double-digit gains for the year. Only a handful ended up in the negative category.

We also talk about fourth quarter stock performance. Looking at the quarter, we had a somewhat different picture -- as lo and behold -- a US regional airline took top honors for the quarter. Which airline pulled off that feat?

But we are not just talking stocks.

No, we are talking a lot about American Airlines and its efforts to single-handedly dismantle the distribution system that the airlines have used since, well, American Airlines and its then subsidiary Sabre, developed the first GDS system. Many years ago.

Over the Christmas holidays, there were a number of happenings on this front. We'll update you on those, and give you our take on what is eventually going to happen, and why we also think the timing of American's push to put its Direct Connect system in place might have been, well, ill-timed.

Then again, throw in the planned merger of Google and ITA -- and maybe it isn't that badly timed.

I know. It's confusing. That's what makes it so interesting to talk about. There are way too many angles to consider -- depending on whether you are an airline, a passenger, or a travel agent.

But make no mistake about it -- airlines want more control over their inventory, they want to know who is buying its inventory, and they don't want to pay a third party to facilitate the sale of that inventory.

American Airlines got its hand slapped last week by the NTSB, after someone in Tulsa apparently downloaded the contents of the flight recorder that was on the Boeing 757 that slid off the runway in Jackson Hole.

The NTSB was not happy.

Meanwhile, the airline and its flight attendants met last week with the NMB -- in an attempt to get contract negotiations back on track. Both sides left unhappy.

I don't think this union is going to be happy unless they go to a strike.

And then -- there is the weather. Airlines are already putting out estimates of how much the rotten weather in December cost them. This week? Another winter storm is causing mayhem across the South and in the Northeast.

Oh, you know. We talk about all this -- and more -- in this week's issue.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 6:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone.

This week's issue PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Actually, this is our last issue for the year, as we take our usual publishing hiatus through the Christmas holidays.

But not before a rather long issue this week.

And we are talking about a lot of different things this week.

In terms of meat and potatoes, we talk about the recent presentations given at the Hudson Securities Airline Investor Conference in New York. The big U.S. players were there, in addition to Pinnacle and GOL.

Two presentations stood out for us, and we talk more about those as a result. The first was the one from JetBlue's CFO Ed Barnes. One big reason this one was on the radar. The airline announced that it's previous fourth quarter revenue guidance was going to come in just a tad lower than expected. Why? And is this just an airline specific thing? A route specific thing? An industry thing?

Second, US Airways' President Scott Kirby took the opportunity to give investors a very complete and concise overview of how he sees demand and revenues shaping up. When Scott speaks, people listen. And with good reason -- Scott is seen as one of the industry's best revenue trend analysts. In fact, Dan McKenzie, analyst with Hudson pointed out at the conference that Scott "nailed" actual 2010 industry RASM performance at last year's conference.

Naturally those in attendance wanted Scott's take on 2011. We give it to you.

In our most enjoyable part of this week's issue, we talk once again to our Mole at the North Pole -- Clyde the Elf.

Every year Clyde "borrows" the letters from airline CEOs to Santa Claus, copies them, and then sends us copies via FedEx. We got the valuable package last Friday.

Let's just say this: WikiLeaks has nothing on PlaneBusiness when it comes to classified airline industry documents.

In other news, it looks like the folks over at USAPA, the pilot union at US Airways, can't read numbers correctly again. Dunno what's with these guys, but this is not the first time we've had to call the union out for posting numbers concerning US Airways that were way out of line.

Oh gosh, we've got all kind of things we're talking about this week including: Southwest Airlines' want ad for an ETOPS manager (think this pretty much confirms those Hawaii whispers); an update on the negotiations with the flight attendants and American Airlines; a new damning report on how just easy it is to fool the TSA's backscatter machines; a great first-person account of what it was like to be in the cockpit of Qantas Flight 32; union angst at Philippine Airlines; DOT numbers from November, and a whole lot more.

Subscribers can access this week's issue of PBB here.

Posted by Holly at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello to all on what is a drop-dead gorgeous Tuesday morning here in the DFW Metromess.

This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Subscribers can access it here.

So what are we talking about this week? Well, considering we are headquartered in that hotbed of aviation, Dallas Ft. Worth, we talk a lot this week about the recent British invasion. Oh, that's right. Virgin America is, er, an American company.

It was easy to forget that last week as Sir Richard Branson and the Virgin marketing machine touched down in DFW.

Yes, Virgin America launched its new service to DFW. We give you our take on the festivities.

In addition, in my column this week I take a long look at two similar and intertwined airlines -- JetBlue and Virgin America.

In other news, we have a copy of the Australian Transportation Safety Bureau's preliminary report on the Rolls-Royce uncontained engine failure on Qantas Flight 32. Let me put it this way -- if there were any doubts before, it's pretty clear Rolls-Royce has a big problem with the Trent 900 engine. Particularly the version Qantas is using on its aircraft. And yes, that particular flavor of 900 is a different configuration than the one Singapore and Lufthansa uses.

We include two of the photos from the report in this week's issue. Not a pretty sight.

In other news, the International Air Transport Association announced that Cathay's CEO will be taking over the helm there next year. This means we'll have two new mouthpieces at the helm of the two biggest airline trade groups in 2011.

Fallout from the national election continues to trickle down through the industry. This week we saw shares of FedEx lead the group as analysts upgraded shares. Granted, one of the reasons shares were upgraded is an increase in industrial productivity -- but the fact that proposed legislation that would have made it easier for FedEx drivers to unionize is now probably toast -- a result of the changes in Washington -- certainly is at play here as well.

Speaking of Wall Street, oil prices hit their highest point in more than two years on Friday. Monday, they were up again.

Not good news for those things with wings that drink millions of gallons of jet fuel for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

And what about those Spanish Air Traffic controllers? Did you folks see how much these guys make on average? Trust me. It's more than 99% of what airline pilots make.

It's hell when the gravy train stops.

All of this and much more in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Enjoy!

Posted by Holly at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello all.

Here's hoping that all of you had a wonderful Turkey Week. I did. Although I didn't end up with enough left-over turkey. I may have to roast another one here shortly, just so I can have leftovers to make turkey hash with.

This post-Turkey Week issue we talk about a lot of things. First, our column this week looks at Orbitz and how it got to where it is today -- and why American Airlines is trying to pull its inventory from its website. I take a look at the history of the company -- and how it has evolved from its humble beginnings. Ahem. You all remember those beginnings. The company was set up as the "Travelocity Terminator" -- the first attempt to set up a "direct connect" OTA for the airlines that created it.

My how things change.

Of course we talk about the as-yet-to-be-announced delay for the Boeing 787, the update from Qantas on its A380 operations, and yes, we even talk about how Air France is going to once again undertake recovery operations to find the black boxes and anything else it can find from its lost Airbus in the Atlantic Ocean this coming spring.

Union talk? Of course. We follow up our issue last week with a great letter to the editor from one of our subscribers in which he touches on both the Continental/united scope "problem" and the flight attendant situation at American Airlines. In a very astute manner I might add.

Airline stocks? This week we talk about the latest from Morgan Stanley analyst Bill Greene. Mr. Greene happens to believe that there is opportunity in them there shares. Airline shares that is. Right now.

Virgin America lands in Dallas this week. Yee haw! In anticipation of Virgin's arrival, American is offering their customers the usual heavy dose of frequent flier points on DFW flights to LA and SFO, but as I talk about this week -- is this tired and true tactic still relevant?

I'm not sure. At least not in this case. The Virgin product is a nice one. And there are a whole lot of folks for whom accumulating more AAdvantage miles is not nearly as important as a nice comfy seat, cool onboard entertainment and food options, and well....that whole Virgin Vibe thing.

Oh, we talk about a lot more this week -- but I need to get this posted.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here! Now!

Posted by Holly at 4:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Greetings to all you turkey lovers out there.

It's Monday. It's time for this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Speaking of turkeys, yes, we're talking about the TSA this week. Isn't everyone?

But we're also talking about Deutsche Bank analyst Mike Linenberg's rather gushing research note on Republic Holdings. Also -- where does Mike think the industry now has too many competitors?

We're talking union stuff too. Two more thumbs down employee votes at Delta Air Lines, a thumbs up from the Southwest Airlines' flight attendants on their contract ratification and a thumbs up ratification from the AirTran pilots on their new contract.

However -- there is one part of the new AirTran pilot contract that we are curious about. Can you guess what part that is?

Then there is the picketing this week by the Continental and United pilots. Pahleez. Is this really necessary?

Not sure if you have been keeping up with the fight north of the border, but Canada and the UAE are about to go to blows over the issue of giving Emirates more access into Canada. I mean, this is getting serious.

We have a lot more information this week regarding exactly what happened when that Qantas A380 had an engine suffer an uncontained failure. The laundry list of items that were affected on the aircraft is not pretty.

Meanwhile, as has been the case since the beginning, most of the information coming out concerning the problems with the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine is not coming from Rolls-Royce.

Then we had Boeing running around, telling websites they had to remove photos of the damage to its 787 test aircraft. Lovely. I do so love it when a company thinks they can make a problem go away by removing the evidence in a rather heavy-handed manner.

On the GDS front, American Airlines seems more determined than ever to cause mayhem and madness in the travel agency business. More on their latest moves in this week's issue as well.

All this and more in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 12:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay all you hungry people. This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

Whew.

This is the last earnings issue for the quarter, and that is a good thing.

Next week we can get back to our normal format and usual publishing schedule. Right before we embark on our Turkey day extravaganza.

But -- before then -- this week we have our hand's full.

First, we have an update on the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine failure involving the Qantas A380. All the Qantas A380s remain grounded. Rolls still isn't saying a lot. But everyone else sure is. Engines are apparently being taken off the A380 production line, Singapore Airlines has swapped out three engines already, and, well, this is a very serious situation.

It is going to make for a very serious dent in Rolls-Royce's net profits as well, as you can bet all these airlines are keeping tabs on their expenses incurred and Rolls is going to receive the final bill.

Not to be left out, Boeing had its own problem last week with one of its 787s -- as it was forced to land after a fire broke out in an aft electrical panel.

When we're not talking aircraft and engines, we're talking TSA.

As someone who is now faced with the prospect of having to go through an "extended pat down" every time I fly as a result of having a big piece of titanium in my hip, I am not happy about the new "group and grab" procedures.

Funny thing though -- we received a number of notes this week from airline crew members. It appears that the TSA has pulled back on insisting on either the AIT scanner or the "extended pat down" for crew members. Not in all locations though.

No, the TSA has not issued an official backdown. But I've received enough notes to tell me that there has been a relaxation in the previous directives.

We also wrap up third quarter earnings coverage this week with our own "extended" look at Republic and Pinnacle.

If you took a look at the stocks of either airline and how they performed for the last week -- you might have some questions.

In the case of Pinnacle, shares soared.

In the case of Republic, they did just the opposite.

We'll tell you why.

We also go over the September DOT Airline Consumer Travel Report. And the September tarmac and cancellation numbers. Very interesting "rounding" of numbers going on here. We talk about all that as well.

There was a rather bizarre Airbus A380 order announced last week, the DOT and FAA sought to assure air travelers that they are working to make sure older aircraft are safe -- only problem is that the efforts won't take effect for years -- and hey, the future King of England's wife-to-be has two parents who met while working for British Airways.

We only talk about the important things here at PlaneBusiness Banter.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 4:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello to everyone on what is a gloriously beautiful day here in the DFW Metromess.

Today I bring you another luxuriously long issue of PlaneBusiness Banter posted for your reading pleasure. Or as someone said to me last week at a conference I was speaking at, "I LOVVEE these issues. It gives me something to read during my entire flight!"

Yes, well. I'm so happy we can be of help.

Earnings season is finally winding down. We talk about three airlines in depth this week - Air Canada, WestJet and SkyWest. We also have earnings summaries for the last two reportees for the quarter -- Republic Holdings and Pinnacle. We'll talk more about them in next week's issue.

But hey, there was a whole lot going on this last week besides earnings.

Shares of AMR, parent of American Airlines, had a great week, after Jamie Baker at JP Morgan Chase picked the stock as his current favorite. Kind of a no-brainer considering how badly beaten up the stock is -- compared to its peers. According to Jamie, the company should start to see some improvement to its lagging margin performance as the British Airways joint venture kicks into gear. He said a lot of other stuff as well. More in this week's issue.

On the labor front, the flight attendants at Delta Air Lines just said "No" to union representation last week. After 16 years and three elections, the Association of Flight Attendants couldn't get it done. The AFA said it is going to protest the election on grounds the airline interfered.

Negotiations have clearly bogged down between the pilot unions at United and Continental. Sounds like pay scales for the United Boeing 747 is a major sticking point but that sticking point runs parallel to the other bigger problem -- seniority.

As I say this week, you guys should not attempt to negotiate a contract unless the seniority agreement has been completed.

Meanwhile, in Dallas, the Allied Pilots Association has hired a professional negotiator. I think I said the union needed to do this about four years ago. Glad they finally took my advice.

The man they hired, Seth Rosen, is affiliated with the Air Line Pilots Association.

Interesting. I sense a thaw developing in relations between the two pilot unions.

Some notable tidbits from across the pond this week as well, including the fact that privately-held Virgin Atlantic confirmed it has hired Deutsche Bank to look at its "strategic opportunities." This comes as reports also say Sir Richard may be ready to sell his interest in the airline. That would make sense. He would never be able remain at the helm as he is now if the airline were to be sold. He could never accept not being in charge.

But the most disturbing things we talk about this week have nothing to do with unions or earnings.

The first one -- the uncontained failure of a Rolls-Royce engine on a Qantas A380 last week and the fact the airline says it has found other A380 Rolls engines with unacceptable levels of leaking oil.

Not good.

The second one -- my first experience with the new TSA "extended" pat-down procedure.

Not good either.

More feedback on the TSA's changed procedures from yet another pilot union this week -- and we couldn't agree more.

Speaking of "more," -- all this and more in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 4:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello to everyone on what is a dark and stormy night here in the DFW Metroplex. This week's mega-earnings issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Be prepared. It's another long one.

This week we take an in-depth look at the recent third quarter earnings from JetBlue, Hawaiian, Allegiant, and Alaska Air Group.

All in all, a very impressive group of industry representatives.

If you are looking for an airline that is doing its best to run itself like a real honest-to-god profitable investment for its shareholders, look no further than Alaska Air Group, which is now poised to hit its 10% ROIC target for the year.

Not only that but the airline posted an exceptional operating margin for the quarter.

I can't say enough good things about the management team at Alaska. They have done one heck of a job over the last five years at the airline.

Hawaiian Airlines also had a very good quarter, although the airline continued to see fierce price competition on its trans-Pacific routes. I like the airline's continued expansion into Asia as a good hedge against the continuing trans-Pacific warfare.

JetBlue posted good numbers as well, and that ROIC metric was thrown around in their call as well. The airline has postponed some aircraft deliveries, it continues to work through its migration to the Sabre reservation system, and overall the numbers for the quarter were good.

Allegiant came in a bit above the analyst consensus numbers that were in place in mid-October, but the air travel company that also happens to run Allegiant Air didn't quite come in as high as had been previously modeled by most analysts. So -- their results were a bit of a good news, "okay" news situation. In terms of the stock -- the news was good enough to create a short squeeze on shares of the airline's stock though. Going into October the airline was the most heavily shorted of all the airline stocks.

This last week yours truly was at Southwest Airlines for their Media Day event. I talk a lot about that in this week's issue as well. Yes, the rumor is true. The airline had all us media types board an aircraft outside its hangar at the airline's headquarters -- to show us how fast its Row 44 Wi-Fi product is -- and it wouldn't work. We couldn't connect.

I felt sorry for them. We've all been there, right?

Lots more about what we heard and saw over on Denton Drive in this week's issue.

Also -- the hot topic that is filling up our email bag this week are the various heated communications that are coming from almost every pilot union or pilot MEC group that we know of. The subject? The new "enhanced" security measures that the TSA just rolled out this week that includes the "body scanners" in addition to pat downs that we have heard from various people go way beyond what most people are comfortable with.

I fly to Los Angeles on Wednesday. I always get nabbed for secondary screening anyway because of this hunk of titanium that is in my leg. I am not going to be happy if now, I am subjected to a more "enhanced" pat down every time I fly as a result.

Anyway, we talk about all that as well.

We've got all kinds of other stuff too in what I figure is easily another 100 plus page issue this week.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 6:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week's 130-plus page issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now, finally, posted!

This week we take a full in-depth look at the third quarter earnings and the recent earnings calls from American Airlines, US Airways, Southwest Airlines, United/Continental, and Delta Air Lines.

Whew.

We also have earnings summaries for JetBlue, AirTran, and Alaska Air Group. (We'll take our more in-depth look at both JetBlue and Alaska in next week's issue of PBB.)

Our general take on what we heard in the calls from the five airlines we talk about this week?

First of all, the fact that the airlines that have reported so far have reported such strong numbers should not have come as a surprise. I was somewhat "shocked" myself to see someone referenced in a story about the results last week talking about the "shock and awe" of the profits reported.

Hog wash.

We all knew it was going to be a great quarter. And there is no reason why the fourth quarter is not going to be a good one either.

Anyway, so much for people who don't know that much about the industry, eh?

Speaking of, I liked some comments that US Airways CEO Doug Parker made on the topic of consolidation in that airline's call last week. As he correctly pointed out, it's probably time to stop asking the question of when or if. "Consolidation has happened." Yes, it has.

And, as he pointed out, that is one reason the industry in the U.S. is doing as well as it is. With fewer players out there, it is finally allowing the players who are there to pick up some pricing power. Yes, less capacity doesn't hurt either.

But as Avondale analyst Bob McAdoo said in a research note recently, by eliminating duplicate flying and creating new traffic flows, the United/Continental merger reminds him of why he likes mergers. He then went on to list a slew of route changes that the new combined airline has already loaded in his note.

Listening to the Delta Air Lines call, one would have to be a total dufus not to see how the merging of those two airlines has created one airline that is doing a lot of things a whole lot better. The airline especially shone on the revenue side.

As for Southwest, there's no question the airline posted nice profit numbers for the quarter, but I talk more this week about why the airline continues to frustrate those of us who have been waiting for the airline to move forward on several key infrastructure or product items. CEO Gary Kelly and Avondale analyst Bob McAdoo had an interesting back and forth on this topic at the end of that airline's call.

And then there is American Airlines. The good news? The airline finally posted a quarterly profit. The not-so-good news? It wasn't that big of a profit. The airline's earnings call was not the best in the world either this quarter. We talk more about all that this week as well.

As for the folks at US Airways -- the airline posted a very strong quarter. A record-breaking quarter, as was the case with more than one of the airlines last week. While the outlook for revenue upticks is going to slow down as the airline moves into 2011 (tougher comps coming up), that is basically true for most airlines, so I don't see that as a major deal breaker here. Operationally, the airline is running one of the most efficient airlines out there these days.

As always, all this and more, including some feedback from my column last week on the change in command at ALPA national, a brief rundown on the AirTran results, and other miscellaneous dribs and drabs.

Subscribers can access the issue here. (Just a warning. If you print this issue out, it's going to run very, very, long.)

Posted by Holly at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's earnings season once again.

Technically the third quarter earnings season for the airline industry opened yesterday as Hawaiian Airlines reported its numbers. But today mere mortals were definitely made aware that the third quarter number parade had started as three of the industry's major league hitters reported their third quarter results.

Today US Airways, AMR, parent of American Airlines, and Delta Air Lines opened up the spreadsheets to the public.

Verdict? All three airlines beat previous forecast numbers.

Let's take AMR first.

AMR posted a 3Q profit of $0.39, excluding special items. This was a small beat over the analyst's expected $0.32 figure. That translates to a net profit of $143 million, as opposed to the forecast $110 million figure. This is the first profit for the airline in two years.

Best 60-second analysis of the AMR numbers we've read so far come from Jamie Baker and Mark Streeter, analysts with JP Morgan who wrote,

Does labor & lack of alliance immunity fully explain AMR's margin woes? AMR management routinely cites lack of alliance immunity (no longer the case starting this month) and its labor cost disadvantage (gradually diminishing) as key factors of its relative underperformance. But is that all? To wit: AMR’s 3Q 670 bps EBIT deficiency to its Legacy peers (based on UAL expectations) hasn’t been this bad since 3Q02, and in fact has worsened in recent years…despite higher labor costs at DAL/NWA and no apparent immunized alliance momentum at SkyTeam and Star. We would suggest diminished corporate momentum versus a bulked-up Delta (and soon, United) as possible causes…suggesting AMR may choose to rethink its role in ongoing industry consolidation."

US Airways reported earnings of $1.23 a share, excluding special items, or $243 million. This was just a bit better than the analyst consensus forecast of $1.17 a share.

Trivia note of the day? This quarter US Airways posted a 10% operating margin. As Jamie Baker with JP Morgan noted in his note about the results, this represents a third quarter record margin performance for the airline. And not just "the current version" of US Airways. Jamie noted that they went back through all the predecessor companies, or at least as far as they could go back, and they couldn't find a better third quarter performance posted by the company -- ever. (He did admit that they could not find the financial records for Piedmont or PSA though.)

Finally, Delta Air Lines reported a profit of $929 million, or $1.10 a share, excluding one-time items. This was just above the forecasted consensus figure of $0.94. The reason for the upside here? Better than expected revenues.

Tomorrow? Four more big guns strut their third quarter stuff as we'll hear the third quarter numbers from Southwest Airlines, Continental/United, JetBlue and Alaska.

Don't be surprised if we hear of more upside surprises tomorrow, especially after the Air Transport Association issued much better than expected September RASM performance numbers last night. The ATA announced that September RASM for those airlines that report to the ATA rose 14.6%, topping most analyst forecasts. That better than expected result clearly helped give a little last minute boost to the industry's third quarter performance -- as the results from these three airlines today confirmed.

Posted by Holly at 3:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello all. It's that time again. This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Yes, this is the pre-earnings issue. Before the madness begins later today as Hawaiian Airlines starts off the third quarter earnings parade with its earnings release. By the time the week is over, we will have heard from all the major U.S. domestic players.

It's going to be a strong quarter for the industry. We could even see some record profits posted by a number of denizens. And, yes, for the first time in two years, American Airlines will, finally, post a quarterly profit, although most analysts don't expect the profit to be much more than $110 million.

On the other side of the cha-ching-o-meter Delta Air Lines is forecast to post the largest profit for the major airline group, as it should post a profit in excess of $730 million dollars for the quarter. Not bad. Not bad at all.

But before all those big numbers start to roll in later this week, we are talking this week about the recent ALPA national election of officers. To say that the largest pilot union in the U.S. just made a rather notable change in its leadership would be an understatement. We talk this week about why I like the fact that Lee Moak is the organization's new President and why his outlook and approach to labor/management negotiations is so different from what we have seen historically from other labor leaders, not just at ALPA.

And yes, we think this is a good thing.

For those of you who are not familiar with Lee, you can catch a public posting of a PBB Lounge Lizard interview we did with him last January over on our Planebusiness.com site.

The DOT issued its latest Airline Consumer Travel Report numbers last week. Which airlines performed well and which ones didn't? We talk about all that, and we take another look at the number of reported tarmac delays and cancellations. Is there a discernible trend here or not? It depends on how you interpret the numbers.

We also talk about the situation in France this week. To put it simply, if you don't have to fly there, don't. Why? Unhappy French workers. Everywhere. Including airports and air traffic control towers.

We had two new airline marketing campaigns hit the airwaves last week. What do we think of those? We'll let you know.

Lots of mail in this week's email bag too.

All this and more in this week's edition of PlaneBusiness Banter. Subscribers can access the issue here.

Posted by Holly at 9:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Greetings earthlings. Gotten a text message from Brett Favre lately?

Okay, I'll behave.

Which is more than I can say for Mr. Favre.

The latest edition of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

This week we take a look at, what else? The Southwest/AirTran deal. Lots of chatter going on about just why it was that AirTran decided to sell. We talk about that, and I answer a lot of email questions about my comments from last week concerning the deal as well.

American Airlines was all over the newswires this past week. We talk about all the airline's news, the latest missive from the Allied Pilots Association, and we wonder just where the airline is going to get all the metal to fly all this new flying it is talking about.

Oh, and yes, the airline also recalled 800 employees. Wonder how many of those former TWA flight attendants will come back and fly? I'd be interested to know.

Meanwhile, over at United Airlines (under new management), the pilots on both sides there said this last week that they have decided to keep direct negotiations going for at least another two months -- rather than ask the National Mediation Board to step in. Good. If they asked the NMB to step in it would be months before anything got done.

Five years from now -- how will the industry look? What will be different? I do my best Karnac imitation this week. Complete with turban.

Then there is the strange tale of British Airways' Captain Peter Burkill. Burkill was Captain of British Airways flight 38, the Boeing 777 aircraft that lost power in both Rolls-Royce engines during final approach to Heathrow. He and his co-pilot were hailed as heroes after they managed to land the plane safely just short of the runway.

But things turned awry for Burkill pretty quickly. When all was said and done, he quit the airline, was unable to find another job as a pilot, and found himself on welfare.

We talk about his journey this week, and the strange twist to it that just occurred.

We have all kinds of other goodies, including a rather nifty way to look at regional airline profitability that was published in a research note last week by Bank of America/Merrill Lynch analyst Glenn Engel, and the usual hot YouTube videos that made their appearance this week. We've got foul-mouthed furry puppets, more cartoon union negotiation stories and dancing flight attendants.

It's just a never ending party.

All this and more in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter. Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

Last week was one huge week in Airlineland as not only did it mark the end of the third quarter, but the United/Continental deal closed on Friday. All of this came on top of the big news from Monday -- Southwest Airlines was buying AirTran for $1.4 billion in stock and cash.

Not surprisingly this week's issue of PBB is very heavy on U.S. domestic airline analysis. Who could be hurt by the Southwest news? Who could be helped? We go down all the scenarios.

And no, unlike a lot of industry observers and at least one analyst, I don't think Delta Air Lines is going to take a huge hit as a result of the move by Southwest into Atlanta. More on why I think that is the case in this week's issue.

Continental reported its traffic and RASM estimates after the close of trading Friday. The airline's RASM estimate for September came in much higher than analysts had forecast. Will United's follow suit? Yes, this marked Continental's final traffic report as a swinging single.

The feeling before this announcement was that the U.S. domestic industry has experienced a drop-off in revenue during September. But now we know that at least one airline didn't see a drop-off.

Thursday marked the end of the third quarter. And wow -- was it a great one for the airline sector. So great in fact that we even had one airline stock post a triple-digit gain for the quarter. A gold star if you can guess what stock I am talking about.

But even without that stellar performance (which was, arguably merger-driven), the rest of the group enjoyed an extremely strong quarter. We run down the winners and the handful of losers.

For that matter, last week was a good week for the sector as well -- as the Southwest/AirTran merger moved stocks higher. Especially shares of AirTran, which took the weekly honors for the group.

All this and more in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Subscribers can access this week's issue of PBB here.

Posted by Holly at 7:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How do you know when an airline merger is official?

When someone you know who works at Continental Airlines sends you an email and his email address has suddenly changed to John Smith@united.com.

Yep. The deal is done. Today United and Continental officially became one entity, the largest airline in the world, with both airlines operating under the umbrella of parent United Continental Holdings, Inc. Shares of the new company also began trading this morning under United's old ticker on the NYSE, UAL.

(I for one am very glad to see the airline stop trading on the Nasdaq exchange under that annoying UAUA ticker.)

Which reminds me. I need to go in and reconfigure our airline stock ticker widget over there to the right.

Pardon me while I go try to remember how to do this.

Posted by Holly at 1:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Funny thing about the recent push by Southwest Airlines to get their flight attendants and pilots to agree to contracts that will allow 737-800 flying. As I told an audience in Chicago last week -- I seriously doubted the airline was only interested in getting their employees' okay so that they could order new airplanes.

Bingo.

Today the reason became clear as the airline announced it is purchasing AIrTran.

This morning Southwest announced its intention to purchase AirTran for a combination of cash and Southwest stock. Each share of AAI will be exchanged for $3.75 cash and 0.321 shares of LUV with an adjustment mechanism to provide $7.25 to $7.75 in value for each share of AAI.

Are we surprised? No.

Atlanta has long been the big gaping hole in Southwest's business model. In addition, Southwest now realizes that with a mature (i.e., flat) market in the domestic U.S., the only way to grow is through the acquisition of a new livery as the opportunity for organic growth is practically non-existent.

Posted by Holly at 9:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hello earthlings.

It's that time again. Time for this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Last week we were honored to deliver the luncheon speech at the third annual The Beat Live Conference in Chicago.

Right off the bat Jay Campbell and the rest of the folks at ProMedia made news of their own, as it was announced that ProMedia, the parent company of The Beat, and its related business travel publications, had been acquired by Northstar Travel Media.

Northstar currently owns both Travel Weekly and Business Travel News.

After all that news was digested -- it was time for the show.

As I have told readers in the past, the reason I am such a big fan of The Beat Live is because of the people who go to the conference. Confrontation is encouraged and embraced. This is not a "polite" gathering. People are not afraid to speak their mind. This is a good thing.

If it has anything to do with corporate travel, it was probably discussed. The biggest problem I had this week was trying to decide what exactly to write about. There was way too much to choose from.

But aside from my traipsing around the country, it was a fairly heavy news week.

American Airlines jolted the markets Wednesday when they announced guidance for the third quarter that was below expectations. While the airline should still post a profit for the quarter, it will post a loss for the year.

On the international front, we talk about the interesting comments made by Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary this past week about why it is the Ryanair model may now begin to change. If you want an idea of what he is talking about -- think Southwest Airlines.

Then there was the bizarre fine imposed on United by the DOT last week. Of course we are talking about that. Speaking of United and Continental -- this coming Friday is the big day! Unless something unforeseen happens between now and then, the two airlines will close on their merger Friday.

Analyst Dan McKenzie with Hudson Securities talks about why investors should not be concerned with Delta's increase in fourth quarter capacity (hint: the power of the airline's Tokyo hub).

Union votes? The big AFA representational election begins this week for the Delta Air Lines' flight attendants. I give you my take on what they should do and why.

Then there is that DOT proposal that would see new rules concerning passengers, fees, denied boarding payments and more. The public comment period ended this last week. Our stance? Transparency yes. But these are commercial items that do not lend themselves easily to heavy-handed governmental regulation.

There is a lot more that we're talking about this week. You just need to subscribe to find out!

Posted by Holly at 10:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone.

I am in Chicago tonight -- I will be presenting the luncheon speech tomorrow at The Beat Live Conference being held here at the oh-so-trendy W Hotel in the City Center.

For those of who who are involved in the day-to-day machinations of corporate travel, you owe it to yourself to subscribe to The Beat. Jay Campbell, the founder, editor, and head animal trainer and I have been friends for a long time. Very long time. He's just as irreverent and unable to regurgitate a press release as I am.

But seriously, this is the only conference that I know of where people really do sit and challenge one another. Ask juicy questions. And confront people.

Just my kind of place.

But before all that stuff starts tomorrow -- it's time to post this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

This week we're talking about airline fee hysteria.

No, I don't think people are mad as hell. Annoyed -- yes. But not mad as hell. Unless we're talking about Spirit Airlines. Then maybe so.

Does there need to be more transparency. Of course.

But this whole screaming match with these three so-called "consumer groups" is just a little too much guys. We'll talk more about all this. As always -- follow the money.

Airline stocks had a good week -- while the price of oil continues to drop. That is good news for the airlines, although the price of jet fuel has stayed stubbornly high over the last several weeks. It has not experienced the same drop in price as has the price of oil.

Did you see the new SkyRider straddle seats that were unveiled last week at an aircraft interiors trade show? Lovely. Not.

The United/Continental deal got its expected shareholder approval last week. Monday the two airlines announced that as of Oct. 1, shares will once again be traded under the ticker UAL -- on the New York Stock Exchange.

Just a sampling of what we're conversing about this week -- as usual there is much more.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 12:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Alas, vacation is over. Time to get back to work.

This week PlaneBusiness Banter begins its 14th year of publication. Thanks to all of our subscribers for supporting us through the years. Needless to say, we couldn't have done it without you!

This week we get you caught up on all the usual stuff -- including airline stocks, energy prices, and RASM estimates from August.

But we've got a lot more than that. In honor of Labor Day, we talk at length about the three biggest labor/management cat fights now in progress. We also chatter about Michael O'Leary's latest publicity tease, and we note British Airways' comments regarding a recurring case of lust for Qantas.

But frankly, we're all over the map with this issue, as we try and play catch up from our summer hiatus.

Subscribers can access this weeks issue here. Now.

Posted by Holly at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nine years ago today I received a phone call from a friend at approximately 8:10 A.M. My friend said in a rather quiet and measured tone, "I think you need to turn on the TV. A plane has hit the World Trade Center."

I responded, rather disinterestedly, "What kind of plane?"

"Don't know," he said.

"Turn on the TV," he directed.

"So how bad is it?" I asked, still, obviously, not grasping the seriousness of the situation.

"Turn on the TV. Now," was his only response.

I hung up. I turned on the TV.

And so the morning of September 11, 2001 began to unfold. In horrible fashion.

This year, the anniversary of that horrible day hits on the same weekend PlaneBusiness Banter resumes its weekly publishing schedule -- after our usual August hiatus from almost all things airline-related.

As we always do, we will honor those airline employees who lost their lives that day in this week's issue of PBB.

Here too, we do the same.

While the world takes a moment today to commemorate the events that happened that day in a much larger sense -- particularly the thousands of people who died in New York City -- we here at PlaneBusiness, as we have since that awful day, focus on our departed airline family members. Those crew members who went to work on what was a beautiful day in the Northeast that day -- but never came home.

American Airlines Flight 11, Boston to Los Angeles, crashed into the World Trade Center.

CREW: John Ogonowski, Dracut, Mass., Captain; Thomas McGuinness, Portsmouth, N.H., First Officer; Barbara Arestegui, flight attendant; Jeffrey Collman, flight attendant; Sara Low, flight attendant; Karen Martin, flight attendant; Kathleen Nicosia, flight attendant; Betty Ong, flight attendant; Jean Roger, flight attendant; Dianne Snyder, flight attendant; Madeline Sweeney, flight attendant.

United Airlines Flight 175, Boston to Los Angeles, crashed into the World Trade Center.

CREW: Victor J. Saracini, Lower Makefield Township, Pa., Captain; Michael Horrocks, First Officer; Amy Jarret, flight attendant; Al Marchand, flight attendant; Amy King, flight attendant; Kathryn Laborie, flight attendant; Michael Tarrou, flight attendant; Alicia Titus, flight attendant.

American Airlines Flight 77, Washington to Los Angeles, crashed into the Pentagon.

CREW: Charles Burlingame, Captain; David Charlebois, First Officer; Michele Heidenberger, flight attendant; Jennifer Lewis, flight attendant; Kenneth Lewis, flight attendant; and Renee May, flight attendant.

United Airlines Flight 93, Newark, N.J., to San Francisco, crashed in Shanksville, Pa.

CREW: Jason Dahl, Colorado, Captain; Leroy Homer, Marlton, N.J., First Officer; Sandy Bradshaw, flight attendant; CeeCee Lyles, flight attendant; Lorraine Bay, flight attendant; Wanda Green, flight attendant; Deborah Welsh, flight attendant.

May they all continue to enjoy peace in a much better place.

Posted by Holly at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello earthlings.

Our "bonus" edition of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

This week we conclude our earnings coverage with in-depth earnings reviews of Pinnacle, AIr Canada and WestJet.

We also take a look at the June DOT Airline Travel Consumer Report. Yep, three hour tarmac delays were much lower -- but cancellations were not up. They were flat.

But hey, like we said last month, one month does not a trend make. Nor does two for that matter.

We take a look at these numbers as well as all the usual DOT consumer moaning and groaning reports, lost bags, and on-time performances.

Of course we also give you the scoop on the LAN/TAM deal. LAN's acquisition of TAM will create the largest airline in Latin America. Big news!

Then there is the new United livery, Delta's upgrade at JFK (about time), Spirit's latest swipe at a competitor (they never miss an opportunity to do so), and more.

All in this week's "bonus" issue of PBB.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

And with that, we are all officially on vacation!

Posted by Holly at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We may be a little late, but hey, we made it.

I know. I can't wait to get my tarmac rule violation bill in the mail this week from the DOT.

Hello all ;-)

This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now, finally, posted. If you read my previous post here you'll get the skinny on why we are posting on Wednesday night. An addendum to that post: while all the other problems were apparently fixed, now I cannot send email on my planebusiness.com account using Verizon.

At this point, I don't care. I can take up that battle tomorrow.

In the meantime, a head's up for PBB subscribers. We will be posting another issue of PBB either later this week or the first of next week. Yes, I was supposed to go on vacation yesterday, but because of all this Verizon mess, we were unable to complete all the material we wanted to include in this final issue for the summer.

So -- the mojitos have been put on hold. The box of mint is still in the refrigerator.

We'll be back for one more issue before we formally depart.

In the meantime however, we have a lot to talk about in this issue, including in-depth earnings reports on Republic, Hawaiian, and SkyWest. We talk a lot about the SkyWest/ExpressJet deal, and there were also more details given about SkyWest's involvement with Air Mekong in the airline's earnings call. We'll update you on all that as well.

Cathay Pacific also reported earnings last week -- and the airline did very, very well. More on those, in addition to the scoop on the newest low fare Asian airline -- a JV between Thai and Tiger.

DAE has apparently told Airbus and Boeing that it is canceling 50 aircraft that had been included as part of the company's eye-popping $27 billion order spending spree at the Dubai Air Show two years ago. Reality has apparently come to the Middle East. Or at least one part of it. There are still all those mind-numbing Emirates aircraft orders out there.

We give you the rundown on which airlines shone in the second quarter in terms of break even load factor and operating margins. And we'll talk about those that posted rather worrisome numbers.

One hint: The same two airlines finished last and next to last in both metrics. Who were those two airlines?

And what about the Canadian airline Jazz? Why does it think it's okay to report its quarterly numbers -- absent any mention of RPMs?

We have a pretty good idea why -- do you?

As always, this is just a part of this week's issue. All this and more -- in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter. Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 7:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello.

See this truck?

This is the truck that the Verizon FIOS service repair person drove to the Worldwide Headquarters this morning at 10 AM.

This visit was in response to my call to Verizon on Tuesday after a new router that they sent did nothing to solve the problem. Their customer service person at that point assured me that the problem was in the Verizon "box" on the wall.

This was after customer service at Verizon had told me Monday that we had lost connectivity because of a bad router.

But remember, I installed a new router on Tuesday -- and nothing changed.

So today, at 10 AM, a live person shows up to "change out" the bad Verizon box on my wall. However, in an ominous sign, he tells me before he does it that this will probably not solve the problem. He's been down this road before.

Live person changes out the box.

He was right.

Nothing changes.

For the next four hours he and I keep testing. Ethernet only. Router on, router off. Hard reboots. On and on. He keeps telling Verizon techs the same stories over and over and over. I can't go anywhere else and try to get this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter completed - as I have to stay and test with my laptop.

Because I am the customer. Because the Verizon tech can't stay here by himself.

By this time, after six days of this -- and a huge issue sitting half completed -- I feel like I have been put through a pasta machine. Over and over and over again.

Finally, at 2:38 P.M., after test number 268, the pages magically load. The connections don't hang. I can finally upload pages to the website again.

And post this blog post.

See that truck?

The one that is marketing Verizon's "blazing fast internet." What you don't see is the small print that reads,

*Most of the time. And definitely not when your PON card is bad.

You IT geeks will understand.

For all the rest of you -- Monday's issue of PBB will be posted later today.

Posted by Holly at 2:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello all.

Live and direct from the PlaneBusiness Worldwide Steaming Hot Headquarters, we bring you a 150 plus-page issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Yes, this is, without a doubt, the mother of all earnings issues.

We have full transcripts and PlaneBusiness Banter earnings summaries for Southwest Airlines, AirTran, JetBlue, Alaska Air Group and Allegiant Travel this week.

Not only that but we give you the numbers that were just reported from Air France/KLM, Lufthansa, British Airways, ANA and Singapore Airlines.

Whew.

All of this plus our take on the more "newsworthy" topics from the past week including the meltdown at Mexicana (and no, we're not talking about the FAA's downgrade of the Mexican aviation safety rating) and the showdown between the pilots and management at Philippine Airlines.

So what do you think? Do you think the pilots and flight attendants at Mexicana should have taken up management's offer to buy the airline?

Or -- should they have cut their pay and benefits essentially in half?

As we were posting this issue, the news came down: Mexicana has filed for bankruptcy.

One thing that will do -- it will stop airline leasing companies from taking their aircraft back. Apparently at least three of the airline's aircraft had already been snatched back by their owners.

Aside from all this turmoil, we then have the latest attempt by the U.S. government to "make the airline industry a better and safer place."

Yes, from the same folks who brought us the Three-Hour Tarmac rule, the Senate and the House passed a bill last week that will see the minimum number of flight hours required for a regional airline pilot position jump to 1500.

Needless to say, I can understand why members of Congress want to look like they are making the industry a safer place -- but is a 1500 hour flight time minimum the way to do it?

One of our regular contributors gives us his take on the potential ramifications of this legislation in this week's issue.

One thing that is a constant in this industry is that it always has a lot of debt.

But while most of the airline's debt ratings are in the "junk" category, shrewd investors know that investing in airline debt can be quite profitable.

This week I assemble the latest credit and debt comments on the major airlines from Mark Streeter -- the man who does this for a living for JPMorgan Chase. I think Mark is the sharpest guy on the Street when it comes to airline debt.

As for airline stocks -- a Foreign Flyer took the first place nod last week in terms of gains. Overall, it was a good strong week for the sector.

All of this -- and much, much, more in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 1:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am sitting here waiting for the final edits to be completed on what is, without a doubt, the largest earnings issue of PlaneBusiness Banter we've ever had. More on that in a bit.

But in the meantime, an update on a story we talk about in this week's issue. Mexicana Airlines just filed for bankruptcy.

The airline had given its unions a kind of "the worse of two evils" ultimatum last week and the unions didn't bite. As a result the airline is now in bankruptcy, and we have been told by more than one PBB subscriber that the airline has already had a handful of planes repossessed. One thing the bankruptcy filing will do is prevent additional aircraft seizures.

This news comes just days after the FAA dinged the Mexican aviation safety rating to a number "2."

The FAA action means two things. One, until it changes, it means that Mexican airlines cannot expand their service into the U.S. But secondly, it means that existing codeshare agreements between U.S. carriers and Mexican carriers are now on the shelf.

Delta Air Lines currently codeshares with Aeromexico and American Airlines has a codesharing agreement with Mexicana.

But we can't forget Southwest Airlines, which was, at some point in the future, slated to start a new codesharing agreement with Volaris, yet another Mexican airline.

Posted by Holly at 1:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone.

This week we have a 100-plus page earnings issue of PlaneBusiness Banter for you to peruse at your leisure. And yes, at that length, it should more than take up all of your leisure time for the week. Have no fear. Next week we'll give you another one!

This week we take in-depth looks at the recent earnings results posted by American Airlines, US Airways, United Airlines, Continental Airlines and Delta Air Lines.

This coming week the PlaneBusiness microscope will be trained on the 2Q results of JetBlue, Alaska, AirTran, Allegiant and Southwest Airlines -- which is scheduled to report its second quarter numbers on Thursday.

A couple of quick observations from the group we took a look at this week.

One, even before the formal announcement was issued this morning, it had been clear for some time that United Airlines President John Tague was not a member of the executive transition team that was going to stay with the "new" United. That fact was also crystal clear as you listened to the airline's earnings call last week.

This morning, the airline formally announced that John, Kathryn Mikells, Graham Atkinson, and Rosemary Moore would not be staying with the "new" United.

Zane Rowe, current CFO at Continental will remain, but Pete McDonald will come over from United as COO. As for the rest of the top tier execs, including those heading up marketing, communications and HR, all will come from Continental. And of course, Jeff Smisek will be CEO.

We told you so. From the beginning.

Back to earnings.

Of this group, there was clearly one airline that posted earnings above and beyond -- that airline was US Airways. In fact, while the airline's numbers were great as they were, the airline would have seen their EPS figure come in 8 cents higher -- had the airline chosen to classify a refund from the TSA as regular income -- not a special item. (As some airlines chose to do, including United Airlines.)

The airline posted one great quarter. On a number of fronts. It managed to stash a nice chunk of cash as well.

As for United and Continental, it's really kind of pointless to talk about them as viable standalones at this point because the merger looms in the background. In terms of potential stock investments -- I'd say all bets are off here until after the actual merger is much further along.

Delta Air Lines, which was the subject of our last non-PBB post here in PlaneBuzz had a nice quarter, and yes, the comments it made about guidance and its fourth quarter increase in capacity were way overblown.

All of that capacity hysteria was so yesterday.

Good quarter for the folks in Atlanta.

And finally, American Airlines trudged out its loss for the quarter last week as well.

We are once again putting American Airlines on the official PlaneBusiness Titanic Watch this week. The airline announced a number of executive changes this last week -- but I'm not sure they are going to be enough to get the airline out of its self-created sinkhole.

More on all that in this week's issue.

We also wrap up the news from Farnborough, and we talk about the legal move US Airways announced Monday, as they try to attempt to break the seniority fight log jam that exists between its pilots.

And finally -- yes, we talk about the ongoing Tarmac Tales. Consulting studies, DOT rants, and all.

All this, and more -- including a shot of the new Virgin Atlantic livery. Woo hoo! (We have to do something to celebrate Sir Richard's 60th birthday.)

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Greetings to one and all.

Let it be known that yes, the second quarter earnings season for the airline industry is now officially upon us. Before the week is over, nine major airlines will have reported earnings.

Yes, count them. NINE.

Kicking off this quarter's festivities was Delta Air Lines. And boy, did the airline make a scene. While the airline posted its biggest quarterly profit since 2000, analysts and traders were none to happy with the airline's guidance comments, and its fourth quarter capacity forecast.

While we don't do our formal transcript review and earnings summary for Delta in this week's issue, I do talk in detail about what the airline reported and give PlaneBusiness Banter subscribers a cross-section of comments from a number of analysts who cover the stock.

This is also a big week for those who love airplanes and the men who like to buy them.

Yes, it is time for Farnborough. I talk about the big deals that were announced Monday -- and update you on just how well capitalized Steve Hazy's new leasing venture is. Answer: Very.

Don't look now but Congress is sniffing around airline fees. Not only does Congress want to make sure that passengers know exactly what they are going to have to pay for when they book that flight, Congress is also now making noise about how it wants to start taxing those fees that passengers are clearly aware of.

Remember -- fees are not taxable, whereas fares are hit with a 7.5% tax.

Things are so dire in Washington that 7.5% looks like a potential luscious low-hanging fruit.

We had another airline analyst pick up her bags and move to new environs over the last two weeks. Helane Becker, formerly with Jesup and Lamont, is now with Dahlman Rose and this week she issued a slew of new coverage on the sector.

Finally, a big thank you to our subscribers who have experienced some weird goings-on with the site the past two weeks. Page numbers have been screwy, log-in credentials have changed, and I just realized tonight, for example, that our headline page on the planebusiness.com site somehow got changed to one from June 28. Nice. I'm sure some of you were wondering what planet we were on.

No planet. Just our own small equivalent of IT cutover hell.

As always, all of this, and more in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

PlaneBusiness Banter subscribers can access this week's issue here. (Note, that is a new link folks. Please bookmark it as such.)

Posted by Holly at 11:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Delta Air Lines reported earnings this morning, the first airline to report earnings for the second quarter.

While the headline numbers for the airline's results look quite good on the surface -- airline stocks began to drop after the numbers were released and they have yet to get up again.

Why is this the case -- if Delta reported such a large profit?

If you are a PlaneBusiness Banter subscriber, you might have a good idea. As I said three weeks ago, I think a lot of this recent giddyness concerning the "return" of airline revenues is, I believe, on shaky ground.

Yes, no question that the second quarter numbers should be good across the board for the sector -- with one glaring exception. The only major airline that will probably post a loss for the quarter is AMR, parent of American Airlines.

But as I talk about in this week's PBB, we are now seeing a number of economic metrics that are pointing toward a recessionary recovery in the U.S. that is running out of steam.

Take those developments, coupled with the fact the airline industry is now looking at the start of a traditionally slow period in September -- throw on results from Delta that disappointed on the revenue side -- and poof. A perfect recipe for an airline sector selloff.

Now you know.

Posted by Holly at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. Holly here.

As of about 20 minutes ago, all of us here at the Worldwide Headquarters *believe* (important word here) that the new log-in system for PlaneBusiness Banter is now working properly.

We had a few hiccups this afternoon as we made the cutover, but I think those small annoying problems have all been taken care of.

What does this mean if you are a subscriber to PlaneBusiness Banter?

It means that your previous user name and password that you used to access PBB prior to this week no longer works. It's done. Toast. Dead.

If you have not received an email from us yet -- assigning you a new assigned user name and password, or if you have any other questions concerning the change, please contact our subscription manager.

Posted by Holly at 3:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello there friends. It's that time once again. Yes, that time when we here at the PlaneBusiness Worldwide Headquarters work our little pencils to a numb and our brains to a frazzle.

And poof -- out comes the latest issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

This week we talk about June traffic and RASM estimates. After Continental's miss right out of the box, all the rest of the usual suspects that report RASM estimates came in pretty darn well, including the airline sector's top stock for the week -- US Airways.

The DOT issued its May Airline Consumer Travel Report this last week and US Airways and Alaska both had great months. We pick the numbers apart more closely as we usually do. Oh and yes, cancellations were up. As for the number of flights that saw passengers on the ground for 3-plus hours -- that would be five. Four were United Airlines' flights that were diverted to Colorado Springs and one was a Delta Air Lines flight.

So, as we ask this week -- when is the DOT going to send both airlines their itemized bills -- per the new 3-hour tarmac rule?

We talk about the latest analyst tweaks. Remember-- second quarter earnings are right around the corner.

Oh and of course we talk about Boeing and Airbus this week. Airbus just got dinged by the WTO, which ruled that yes, the company had received illegal subsidies. The case against Boeing was supposed to be ruled on by the WTO this month -- but now that has been postponed to September.

Bad timing for Airbus, which is smack in the middle of the U.S. Air Force Refueling Tanker contract fight with Boeing.

Looks like the American Airlines/British Airways deal is finally, mercifully, going to get the European nod this week.

And oh, we have lots of mail this week. Including a very long letter to the editor concerning the concept of "job security" and some follow-up reader notes concerning our annual "Ode to a Hot Dog" column.

Oh and what about the Colgan Air pilot who was just busted for having one of the largest collections of child pornography ever seized?

No wonder Pinnacle wants to make the name "Colgan Air" go away.

It's never boring around here.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

For all of you who are not subscribers, shame on you.

Posted by Holly at 9:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

This week we take a look at the Second Quarter Stock Performance for the sector. Guess which airline posted the biggest gain for the quarter?

Actually a non-passenger airline posted the biggest gain overall. But one of the legacy carriers came in second place.

Unfortunately the second quarter was almost a complete reversal of the first quarter in terms of the number of airline and airline-related stocks that posted double digit gains -- as opposed to those that posted double-digit losses.

I guess you could say this week's post Fourth of July holiday issue is somewhat food centric. We do our annual "Ode to a Hot Dog" column this week, and we also talk about the recent USA Today piece that took another look at the problems facing airline catering companies. As I said today, it puts a whole new spin on the phrase, "Roach Coach."

But was the article a fair representation of the problems -- and the scope of the problems?

Then there was the passenger on US Airways last week who apparently thought there was nothing wrong with bringing his own maggot-infested piece of meat stuffed in his overhead bag onboard his flight.

Until the maggots started to escape.

I think the guy should be banned from flying on any US airline for life.

Congrats to the guys in Corp Comm at US Airways who showed a good sense of humor in their employee publication this week as they led a story about the incident with the headline - "Airline to charge new fee for Carrion."

We also talk a lot this week about the announced deal between Google and ITA Software. This deal intrigues the heck out of me. We talked to Forrester Research Analyst Henry Harteveldt about what this deal could mean for the airlines, the GDS companies, and meta search outifts like Kayak.com.

Guess who is going to feel the biggest impact the fastest?

Slot swaps, unionization efforts, new names for Frontier's latest spokesanimal and more -- all in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 7:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our previous log-in problems at PlaneBusiness Banter have been resolved. We are in the middle of a software transition and apparently a part of the new system went live before it should have.

All is back to normal as of now.

Subscribers please note: We'll be rolling out instructions for accessing the site utilizing our new software in the not-so-distant future. Stay tuned.

Thanks again for your patience.

Posted by Holly at 5:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi guys. A funny thing happened on the way to our cutover to the new log-in/access system for PlaneBusiness Banter. The software guru told us this morning that the work was more or less ready to go -- but this was only supposed to mean that it was okay to schedule the actual cutover.

Yes, well, I think instead ...the cutover was DONE.

About ten minutes later I began receiving notes from subscribers saying they could not access this week's issue.

Yes, just one of those techno clusters we all enjoy so much. Don't you just love them?

Anyway, the appropriate folks who can fix the problem are now working to either return us to the previous system, or they are going to advise me on what we need to do to make sure everyone can get in-- using the new system.

Please be patient. If you are a subscriber and we have your current email address, you'll receive an email letting you know when the doors are open once again.

Thank you. You may now resume your Fourth of July party planning activities.

Posted by Holly at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone.

It's a great day in America, isn't it? Sorry, just channeling my inner Craig Ferguson.

Here at the PlaneBusiness Worldwide Headquarters it's been a bit of a challenging 24 hours. We experienced a loss of connectivity late yesterday as a rather nasty line of thunderboomers erupted almost directly over our heads. I lost all email for a bit, and we lost our FIOS (our internet connectivity) after one particularly nasty lightning surge.

Things are now back working as they should, but it caused our editing process to slow to a crawl last night. No, let me rephrase that. It came to a screeching halt.

I finally gave up and we all started up again this morning at about 6 a.m.

And so here we are. Yes, it's a great day in America.

After I get done here I get to go to the vet's office and find out how difficult it is going to be to transition my cat to a new form of insulin. Why do I have to do this? Because the FDA has halted the sale of the type of insulin she was on.

I'm so looking forward to this. I know she is too.

I know that PlaneBusiness Banter subscribers are looking forward to this week's issue -- so here it is. Finally!

This week in PlaneBusiness Banter I talk about the change in command at the Allied Pilots Association. The APA is the pilot union at American Airlines, and well, let's just say the APA and I go back a long time.

Captain David Bates was just elected as the organization's new leader and while this is a most welcome event (anything would be an improvement over the previous "leadership" and yes, I use that term loosely) as I write this week this is a two way street. Management at the airline has to tune up its game plan as well if anything constructive is going to happen as a result of this change in union leadership. More on all this in this week's issue.

On the passenger rights front, Kate Hanni and her followers received a nice bone to chew on last week when we once again had one of those nasty "stranded on the tarmac" incidents. This time the aircraft belonged to Virgin Atlantic, the ordeal sounded awful, but that still doesn't mean that the airline was totally at fault. As usual, there was enough blame to go around. Airport, airline, customs officials, you name it.

A fact that should negate any move to extend the "three-hour rule" to international flights.

Of course this didn't stop the DOT Secretary from using the incident as another excuse to pander to the masses.

We talk a bit this week about the latest Boeing 787 delay information, and we also talk about the American Airlines - FAA discovery of unexpected "cracks" that were found in some Boeing 767 engine pylons. Could newly installed winglets be creating the problem?

Meanwhile, airline stocks had a dismal week. Shares of Hawaiian Airlines took the brunt of the sector decline -- fallout from an Avondale Partners downgrade and price target reduction was to blame.

Oil prices were back on the move again as well last week, as oil traders came down with a case of hurricane angst on Friday.

Finally in this week's email bag, we hear from our subscribers on a range of issues. We have a corporate travel manager lamenting the changes at Continental, someone who agrees with us that the industry is already too regulated, not regulated enough, and someone who asks: if all the airline analysts are so bullish, isn't that a perfect time to sell my stock? Answer? Could very well be. I am a big fan of contrarian thinking. Especially after reading my daily economic news feeds.

As usual, we talk about all this -- and more -- in this week's issue. Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 9:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello earthlings.

Let's see. It's 9:49 as I write this post and it's officially still 90 degrees outside the PlaneBusiness Worldwide Headquarters. Yeecch!

This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is also hot. HOT I tell you.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

This last week I flew down to Houston to speak to the Continental Airlines Corporate Advisory Board meeting. Had a great time. They asked questions. I asked questions. I had a great time. Did I mention that already?

More airlines should do this for their best clients. It provides a feedback mechanism that is invaluable.

Why don't they?

Airline stocks had another good week this week -- as airlines began to unleash more guidance as to second quarter final numbers. As a result, most of the airline stocks we track were up for the week -- with only a few exceptions.

Last week United's Glenn Tilton and Continental's Jeff Smisek traveled to Washington to tell their side of the United/Continental merger story. They had a pretty rough reception. So what is it about all this "re-regulation" talk?

The strike at Spirit Airlines was settled last week.

Frankly, I was surprised. I really thought the big money behind the airline, i.e., Bill Franke, would try and shut down the airline.

But no -- apparently not.

All this and more -- in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 8:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

This week there's clearly one lead story -- and that is the strike by the pilots at Spirit Airiines. The airline has now canceled flights through Wednesday and it does appear that ALPA has been very effective in shutting down the airline.

But if this continues for another couple of days, I think we could see the situation turn ugly pretty quickly, as I don't think management is going to sit idly by and watch the airline go kaput. Does this mean that management will cave and come to terms with the pilots on a new contract? Not necessarily.

Could be an interesting week.

On the flip side, both JetBlue and American Airlines should see some positive revenue increase as they both fly a lot of overlap with Spirit.

This week all interested parties will be in Washington talking about the United Airlines/Continental Airlines merger in front of Congressman James Oberstar's (D-Minn.) House aviation subcommittee.

This week we shine the spotlight on airline consultant Hubert Horan, who is going to be testifying Wednesday. Unlike almost everyone else under the sun, Horan does not think the proposed merger is a good idea. But his take is a bit different than simply calling it "bad for consumers." We discuss why it is he feels this way, and you know what -- I found myself agreeing with him more than I had anticipated.

Big week for airline analysts and airline industry research. Mike Linenberg, who called Merrill Lynch home for many many years, left there this spring and this morning he rolled out his first package of airline research under the Deutsche label. He initiated coverage on a slew of stocks. More on that in this week's issue.

Glenn Engel, who was with Goldman Sachs for many years but who has been out of the airline research game for a couple of years, also returned this month. He recently issued a rather nifty examination of who's doing what and to whom in the top 25 markets. We talk about that this week as well.

And hey, in honor of the hearings this week in Washington, I decided to drag out a classic Glenn Tilton corporate speak quote from the PBB archives. You'll love it.

All this and more in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 9:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The deadline at midnight came and went.

The negotiations continued into the night.

But, at 5 a.m this morning, both sides called it quits and the pilots at Spirit Airlines, who are represented by the Air Line Pilots Association, left the negotiation table. And their cockpits.

Spirt Airlines President and CEO Ben Baldanza said in a statement, "We are frustrated and disappointed that our pilots have turned down an over 30 percent increase at a cost of over $70 million over five years while disrupting thousands of our customers and jeopardizing the livelihoods of our over 2,000 employees."

Spirit is not publicly traded. It is owned by Indigo Partners LLC and Oaktree Capital Management, LLC.

Indigo is the private investment firm that is headed by former American West CEO Bill Franke. Howard Marks is Chairman of Oaktree, which tends to invest in high risk-high yield investments. To put it another way, Marks is known for being one of the most well-known "vulture investors."

The strike marks the first time in five years that an employee group has struck a U.S. airline.

Baldanza told the WSJ this morning that his goal is to get the airline flying again as soon as possible, but he said he couldn't say at this point what will happen, even Sunday. "He said Spirit has some management pilots who could operate flights, but it remains to be seen if some of the striking aviators would cross picket lines and return to work."

Ah, well, yes, I could see where that might be a problem.

He also admitted that the airline had been trying to get charter carriers to fly on its behalf -- in anticipation of a potential strike -- but that "ALPA had pressured those companies, even those whose pilots aren't represented by ALPA, and some dropped out."

He also told the WSJ that the airline has purposely made sure all of its aircraft were back in the U.S. "where we want them to be" in anticipation of the job action.

As for the airline's pilots? He said it was "their problem as to how they get home."

That's what I love about this industry. It's just so damn warm and fuzzy. Can't you just feel the love?

On a serious note -- Spirit is not the most cash-flush operation in the world, and if the pilots are as successful in shutting the airline down as I suspect they are going to be, this could get very nasty, very quickly.

Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but I've seen managements use a lot less motivation to justify shutting down an airline. And who knows? Maybe someone might like to snap up some of the airline's assets for a decent price.

I don't say the pilots were not justified in what they did. It is their right to strike. And, in a weird way, it's good to see the process still works.

But on the flip side, Spirit is not a major carrier. There is going to be no urgency for the administration to create a PEB. And like I said, the airline is not sitting on a lot of cash, nor do the guys who own this thing feel inclined to throw any more cash at it. In addition, while the airline has posted a profit for the last three years, a big reason that has been the case is because of the rock-bottom labor rates at the airline.

Should be an interesting weekend. Especially at the Ft. Lauderdale -Hollywood International Airport. Spirit handles 20% of the traffic out of there on a daily basis.

Posted by Holly at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello airline fans and fanatics.

This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Subscribers can access the latest issue here.

This week we have a real mixed bag of goodies to go through. First, we had the first "suspended" agreement between a union and an airline that I have ever heard of. Then, north of the border we had an airline IPO yanked at the last minute. Porter Airlines says it was because of "volatile market conditions." I suspect those weak first quarter numbers from the airline didn't help much either.

We talk a lot this week about the DOT's latest attempts to make the airline industry more consumer-friendly. Needless to say I think this whole exercise by the DOT is overly political and, for the most part, unnecessary.

And if the DOT thinks that the rules they have suggested are going to improve "customer service" in the industry, well, that just isn't going to happen.

What really ticks me off though is the fact that, overall, the airline industry in the U.S. is turning in some of the best operational performances it has seen in a very long time.

Apparently no one at the DOT is aware of this. Or care that this is the case. Oh no, it's more important to pay passengers if their bags arrive late.

In other news, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling in the USAPA/Former America West pilot lawsuit last week. I was surprised. Word is that the former America West pilots are going to ask that the entire 11 member court re-hear the case. A three-person panel issued the ruling last week.

Not sure if you have been keeping up with what is going on with UPS, but the company just furloughed the first 50 or so of what it says will be as many as 300 pilots.

Yes, this was the first furlough in the history of the cargo carrier.

Meanwhile. over at American Airlines, the TWU said late last week that it has "suspended" its latest tentative agreement with the airline. This was the agreement with the fleet service workers and the baggage handlers that the TWU negotiating committee had already advised members not to vote for. It'll be interesting to hear what the back story is on this one. There are all kinds of stories floating around.

We talk about the latest DOT Airline Travel Consumer Report this week as well. Another great overall month for Alaska Airlines and another less-than-optimal month for American Airlines.

Airline stocks had a slow week. The top gainer for the week were ADRs of Ryanair -- which was a result of that airline's better than expected earnings numbers it released last week.

Lots of letters this week -- most of which talked about my column last week concerning American Airlines and its merger prospects. I may post that column on a delayed basis for everyone to read. I'll post a link here if I do.

A little of that, a little of this. And more. In this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 7:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Greetings to all on what was a very hot Memorial Day here in the Dallas-Ft.Worth Metromess.

I hope all of you had a good Memorial Day holiday and most importantly, I hope all of you took a minute between bites of your grilled hamburgers to thank those who serve this country in our Armed Forces. Or who have served.

The latest issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Subscribers can access the newly posted issue here.

This week I talk about the new "ugly girl" in the industry. Yep, I'm talking about American Airlines and that airline's merger options.

But American is in the news for other things -- including yet another TA with a TWU-represented employee group. However, to say the union leadership gave the deal a lukewarm endorsement would be an understatement.

British Airways saw itself in the middle of yet another strike by its cabin crew members today. This one started on Sunday and as today is a Bank Holiday in the U.K, the work slowdown will probably hit the airline a bit more than the last one. Which just ended on Friday of last week.

I know. It's pure insanity.

This last week airline stocks had a great week with shares of US Airways leading the pack. Handily. The main reason for this sudden burst of vitality? Two bullish analyst notes. JP Morgan analyst Jamie Baker upgraded the entire sector, and had very positive things to say about US Airways in particular. His comments were then followed by a bullish American Airlines/US Airways research note issued by Bob McAdoo with Avondale Partners just a few hours later.

The combined one-two punch was clearly felt across the sector, but especially in shares of US Airways.

Is the Porter Airlines IPO in trouble? First quarter numbers sure didn't help it much.

Virgin Blue had a surprise for its investors this week, and in our Market Review this week we talk about the resurgence of private equity support for the aircraft leasing sector.

All this and more in this week's edition of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 6:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello earthlings.

Subscribers to PlaneBusiness Banter can access this week's issue here.

What are we talking about in this -- our last mega-earnings issue for the quarter?

Well, obviously we're talking about earnings. This week I grouped the three remaining regional carriers together -- SkyWest, Pinnacle and ExpressJet.

While institutional investor interest in the regional sector is understandably less than enthusiastic, I still found it interesting to listen to the calls from the three airlines. Clearly SkyWest is obviously the dominant carrier of these three, and the airline ended the first quarter with more than $700 million of cash in the bank. Gotta love it.

But even SkyWest has had to become creative over the last several years -- as the major airlines keep trying to cut, cut, and cut some more costs from their regional airline contracts.

Regional airlines, in turn, have been forced to get creative.

Nowhere have those efforts been more obvious in this group than with ExpressJet. The airline has dabbled in the corporate charter business, it started its own branded operation, and now it's struggling to keep the doors open while saddled with a big chunk of convertible debt that is coming due. The airline also paid some nice fees to United Airlines -- in return for United throwing some business in its direction.

As for Pinnacle, it didn't have a particularly good quarter. CEO Phil Trenary said that it was one of the worst he had ever experienced -- in terms of the weather-related costs to the airline.

Mekong Air? Heard of it? Apparently Jesup & Lamont analyst Helane Becker has as she grilled SkyWest CFO Brad Rich about the airline's potential involvement with it.

While Brad was not forthcoming with much information, other reports suggest that SkyWest is, in fact, behind the new start-up.

In other news we talk about a lot of labor issues this week -- and of course that includes the situations at British Airways, American, AirTran, and Spirit.

A reminder: The 30-day cooling off period for the pilots at Spirit ends on June 12. A strike here could be nasty -- as Spirit does not have the deepest pockets on the planet.

On Wall Street it was ugly for airline stocks last week. This week hasn't started off all that well either -- although a bullish JP Morgan analyst note this morning seems to have lifted the sector. Shares of US Airways seem to be enjoying the nicest ride today -- a result of both a positive comment from JP Morgan and because of a note from Avondale Partners in which analyst Bob McAdoo discusses the reasons why an American/US Airways deal would make sense.

Which reminds me. I'll be talking a lot about mergers. And potential mergers -- in next week's issue.

All of this -- and more in this week's edition of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone. This week's mega-earnings issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. No thanks to the wizards over at Verizon, who disconnected us totally from the rest of the world early yesterday morning -- five days before they were supposed to -- as part of a move of the PlaneBusiness Worldwide Headquarters.

I don't want to get into it.

However, I will pass along this rather ironic piece of information that not one, not two, but three Verizon employees (who were being recorded at the time probably) told me in the midst of some eight hours of talking to various techs, customer service reps, and supervisors as I frantically tried to get us back online so that we could get published yesterday.

That advice from those on the dark side: Never use the Verizon website to do anything. And especially -- never order any service on the website.

Their advice: Call them and talk to a human.

Now how positively telling are these comments? Isn't the internet/websites/connectivity their business?

Funny. Whenever someone complains to me about the airline industry I always turn and ask them, "And what about your cell phone provider? How's that service working out for you?"

While I don't have my cell phone service with Verizon (I have an iPhone and AT&T has its own problems), all of our H/S internet connectivity is part of a Verizon FIOS package.

Love the FIOS service -- have never had an issue with it. And unfortunately there is no competing AT&T Uverse service at the new Worldwide Headquarters. Otherwise -- at about 2 p.m. yesterday, FIOS would have been history.

Sigh.

What do they say about competition?

Anyway, as I said before I got sidetracked, this week's issue PBB is now posted. Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

This week is another big earnings issue. This week we take a close look at the recent earnings results and earnings calls from Air Canada, Republic Holdings and Hawaiian Airlines. Whew. The three airlines provide a lot to talk about.

In addition, we have the March DOT Air Travel Consumer Report. Verdict? Clearly there was a lot less bad weather in March than there was in February.

We also talk a lot this week about British Airways. The airline is poised to report its biggest annual loss in its history this week. On top of that the airline got hit with yet another strike this morning -- before the airline was successful in getting an injunction against the union mid-day. Still the damage was already done -- at least in terms of flights affected for today and tomorrow.

Then there is the little matter of that damn volcano that nobody can pronounce. And the ash it continues to spew into the atmosphere. It started doing it again this weekend, and once again, airports were closed in the U.K. Is the ash a deadly mess for aircraft engines -- or do we need to develop more accurate methods of determining the extent of the ash and its whereabouts?

UK and European airlines are not happy.

The worst part? This volcano is probably not going to stop doing this any time soon.

We talk about the latest merger chatter this week. We get caught up on the progress in the Continental/United match-up and we wonder who Jesup & Lamont's analyst Helane Becker thinks Republic is going to pair up with before the end of the year. Enquiring minds want to know.

All this and lots more scintillating discussions -- all in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 5:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, one out of two ain't bad.

Three weeks ago, after returning from my BMW Performance Driving School experience in Greenville, S.C. with the folks from Travelport , I told PlaneBusiness Banter subscribers that it appeared that Southwest Airlines was coming to town.

Ding. I am now free to accept heaps of praise that I called the new city correctly.

However, the airline one-upped me today as it announced it was not only starting service to Greenville-Spartanburg, but to Charleston as well.

Oh well. I didn't go to Charleston. Maybe if I had I would have been able to out them on that announcement as well. Heh.

Interesting that in the press release noting the new service, the airline bent over backwards to note that service to both cities is *without subsidies.* It is even in the sub-head of the press release headline.

Hmmmm.

According to the release, "The airline's service will not be dependent on pending legislation to provide air service subsidies."

Guess that's a little sideways jab at AirTran -- the subsidy kings?

Yes, well, Southwest received its own basket of goodies in return for flying into Northwest Florida.

Boys, boys, boys. Let's just play nice.

With or without subsidy, I like both choices.

Posted by Holly at 1:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week's mega-earnings issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

What is on the agenda this week? First, we have in-depth reviews of the earnings calls from AirTran, Allegiant, and WestJet.

But that is just the start.

Our first column from this year's Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airline Symposium discusses a presentation that was made at this year's event by Adrian Slywotzky, economist, author, and partner with Oliver Wyman -- the consulting firm that works with the airport to put on the Symposium.

The subject of his presentation? The airline industry is not the only "no-profit" industry out there. And yes, there are competitors in other "no-profit" industries who have figured out ways to improve profitability. Are there lessons here for the airlines? Yes.

Our second column this week is our first take from the recent US Airways Media Day. Coming just a day after the airline's earnings call and just a couple of days after the airline said it wasn't talking to the powers-that-be in Chicago anymore -- the airline still managed to give us some information we'd never seen before.

All that plus the manic moves on Wall Street last week, the NMB's news from today, the DOT's decision on the proposed slot swap, American's decision to hold its annual meeting away from the madding crowds, and more. In this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Posted by Holly at 8:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I know. We are a bit late this week. Well, ahem, it's been kind of a madhouse this week. To say the least.

Nonetheless this week we have another mega-earnings issue of PlaneBusiness Banter for subscribers to peruse. You can access this latest issue here.

Yes, we are still talking about earnings and this week we have four in-depth reports on the recent earnings released by United Airlines, US Airways, Alaska Air Group and JetBlue.

We also have PlaneBusiness Banter earnings summaries posted for the other airlines that have reported their first quarter numbers.

But hey, all everyone wants to talk about is the United/Continental merger. Right?

Yes, we talk about that as well.

We also give you just a glimpse of what we heard this year at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airline Symposium -- more in next week's issue.

The Readers Write section is also a hot area this week as we talk more about automobiles, our recent selection of Dave Barger for the PlaneBusiness Wild Turkey Award, and we clarify some comments both I made and analyst Jamie Baker made recently concerning American Airlines.

All this and more in another whopper-sized issue.

Posted by Holly at 1:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As expected, news reports this afternoon say that the board of directors of United Airlines has okayed a merger with Continental Airlines. The Continental BOD is expected to meet later today and do the same.

The expected merger is valued at more than $3 billion and the formal announcement is expected Monday.

For now, my lips are sealed. I'm in the middle of writing another 100 page earnings issue of PlaneBusiness Banter. But I will say this -- I hope the folks at Continental did their homework.

Goodbye Houston, hello Chicago.

Posted by Holly at 3:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Big, huge earnings issue this week for PlaneBusiness Banter subscribers to paw through, as we take an in-depth look this week at the earnings posted by AMR, parent of American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Continental Airlines and Delta Air Lines.

We also have earnings summaries for Allegiant, Alaska Air Group, AirTran and Hawaiian.

But....there is more.

Like a long update on the latest chapter in the United Airlines' Mating Dance. Is US Airways really out? Will Continental and United be able to agree on stock prices? Will Gordon Bethune come back to run the new airline?

(That last one is a joke. No, really.)

We've got the details of the testy exchange between JP Morgan analyst Jamie Baker and American's Gerard Arpey and Tom Horton on that airline's call. We've got the details on what I think was a great quarter for Delta Air Lines. And Southwest -- they have made good on their pledge to find more quarters, nickels and dimes in the seat cushions.

As for Continental -- let's just say I think the boys in Houston were a bit distracted.

All this an a whole more in an issue that should run over about 75 pages this week! (Great airline flight reading material.)

PlaneBusiness Banter subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 7:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Subscribers can access the latest issue here.

This week we are talking about ....what else? The latest chapter in the United Airlines/Continental/US Airways mating dance.

Do we think anything has changed? What do we think is going to happen?

We also talk about the press release that Southwest Airlines issued Friday pertaining to its now-dead codeshare agreement with WestJet.

As our PlaneBusiness Brown Bag Analyst told PBB subscribers two weeks ago -- this was all about New York. More on all that in this week's issue.

Then, of course, there is that little problem of all that volcanic ash that is now making its way slowly over the UK and much of Europe. Volcanic ash and jet engines -- not a good combination. For much of Europe, and all of the UK, air travel has effectively stopped altogether, although there were a few "test" flights that went up today -- in an attempt to "measure" the level of ash in the atmosphere.

Right.

Meanwhile today Pratt and Whitney issued the following statement:

"Volcanic ash can damage aircraft and engines in several ways. P&WC encourages operators to refer to their airframe OEMs guidance on a potential volcanic ash encounter for additional information.

While P&WC acknowledges that the Local Regulatory Authority has the final determination of whether flight operation is to be conducted, we want to inform you, our customers, of potential hazards.

P&WC does not recommend operation in conditions where volcanic ash is present. Let us explain why.

Volcanic ash may clog air filters of turbine engines, block cooling air passages, erode the gas path components, and erode the protective paint on casings. Volcanic ash entering the engine can also melt in the combustor and then re-solidify on the static turbine vanes, potentially choking the turbine airflow and leading to surging and an in-flight shut-down. It is also noted that there is a high level of acidity associated with volcanic ash, and this may also lead to deterioration of engine components."

Airline stocks had a pretty good week this week, but oil was positively volatile. Then there was the news of the SEC fraud case against Goldman Sachs. Oh boy. This is just the small tiny piece of what is going to be a very ugly iceberg. We tell you why.

And finally, in addition to all the other things we talk about this week -- there is this major news.

This week we award, for only the second time in 14 years, a PlaneBusiness Wild Turkey Award to an airline CEO who we think has done an outstanding job in leading his employees and managing his airline. No hints. You'll have to go find out who it is somewhere else.

And yes, the award is named in honor of you know who.

Posted by Holly at 7:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just as anticipated, it was reported today that Continental Airlines and United Airlines are supposedly talking about a potential merger, "according to media reports that cite people familiar with the matter."

In answer to a few emails from some folks today, here's our take on this "news."

One, just as the news about a potential US Airways/United deal was clearly "leaked" last week by those on the United side of the potential deal in an attempt to gauge the market interest in such a match-up, the news today that has Continental and United talking another potential merger is no different.

Here's the deal: United Airlines wants to do a deal with somebody. It may be Continental. It may be US Airways.

I could talk at length about the potential plusses and minuses of either deal.

But frankly, those details are not going to be the determining factors in terms of which airline United ends up doing the merger dance with.

Just as was the case with both failed potential merger deals last year involving the same three players, an eventual deal will depend heavily on the role current members of upper management at United Airlines take in any deal.  Particularly United Airlines Chairman and CEO Glenn Tilton. As I wrote this week in PlaneBusiness Banter, one of the big factors in the failure of the Continental deal, and a complicating factor in a proposed US Airways' deal was Tilton's insistence upon keeping control in both deals.

But at the same time, Tilton knows that both US Airways and Continental would like to link up with United. And pressure is building on Tilton to get a deal done. He's only been talking about doing one since he took his position with the airline in 2002.

Frankly, I think Continental would be better off to sit and wait out the current matchmaking attempts. Unless Continental CEO Jeff Smisek and his management team can take control of the new merged entity. Continental already has an advantageous partnership agreement with United, and both airlines are in the Star Alliance. (As is US Airways.)

With US Airways, sources who are involved with the deal tell us that CEO Doug Parker appears willing to let Glenn Tilton stay on in the role of Chairman, with Parker taking the CEO position. But would Tilton be willing to give Parker the control he would need to put together a new management team?

One thing is for sure. This deal, when all is said and done, will be all about ego. Forget routes, forget aircraft compatibility. Forget which deal the markets finds more appealing.

At the end of the day, United Airlines Chairman and CEO Glenn Tilton and his desire to retain control of United is what is going to make or break any new attempt at a merger.

Posted by Holly at 5:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Subscribers can access it here.

What are we talking about in this week's issue?

US Airways/United Airlines merger chatter leads off the issue. My column this week takes on the latest "leak" that clearly came from the United side of the house. We talk about why that was probably the case -- and then take on the pros and cons of a US Airways/United Airlines merger. Again.

I talk about how Continental Airlines fits into all this as well, and why, if I were Continental, I'd be very happy to sit on the sidelines and enjoy the perks of the United/Continental partnership. Not to mention CAL's new membership in the Star Alliance.

We give you the first quarter stock performance review this week. The top performing airline stock for the first quarter was somewhat of a surprise, but the two airlines behind number one were not a surprise.

We also give our usual monthly rundown of the latest DOT Airline Consumer Travel Report numbers. A hint: February was a nasty month for weather-related cancellations. Especially for Comair. What the heck happened up there in Cincinnati anyway?

Looks like Ryanair is serious about their "Fee for Pee" plan. Meanwhile British Airways has submitted a new offer to leaders of its cabin crew union.

All this and much more in this week's issue.

Posted by Holly at 9:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For what it's worth, we've been hit by a number of emails in the last hour concerning a possible announcement regarding a move by US Airways on United Airlines.

While this would certainly be big news, for those of you who follow the industry (and hopefully by reading PlaneBusiness Banter), you shouldn't be surprised.

Yee haw. I hope these rumors are spot on. I'm tired of reading emails about diaper bags and charging for carryons.

Posted by Holly at 3:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Terry Maxon with the Dallas Morning News dropped me a friendly note today and asked me if I had forgotten to finish my thought from last night.

No, just had to get my hard drive upgraded in the laptop today. And I simply forgot to update the post-in- progress from last night. My bad.

I could have used the excuse that I was trying to recover from what had to be one of the best sporting events I've ever watched last night -- but no, I had a much more pedestrian excuse.

So what are we talking about in this week's issue?

Judging from the email box today, the most talked-out piece is our PlaneBusiness Brown Bag Analyst guest column. In this column, a subscriber of ours who also just happens to be an expert in the confusing subject known as the Canadian aviation market, pens his take on the Southwest Airlines-WestJet codeshare "disagreement."

Our guy knows his stuff.

And yes, of course I weigh in again on the American Airlines/JetBlue announcement from last week -- following up on the blog post that first appeared here.

I still like the deal.

Then there is the story of the ALPA poster boy for ethics.

If you've read this month's issue of Airline Pilot, the in-house mouthpiece of the Air Line Pilots Association, you know that, unfortunately, ALPA decided recently to parade out a particular ALPA member each month who it had determined exemplified the "best" of ALPA.

Yes, well, this month's ALPA poster boy for ethics, Tim Martins, who we think has most recently been employed as a pilot for American Eagle, apparently has a problem with putting things on his Facebook page that aren't true, much less telling the publication other, er, "facts" that now, apparently we find out, are not quite true.

A complete and total PR disaster for ALPA.

More on all this in this week's issue.

We talk about the disappointing "agreement" that the EU and the U.S. recently trumpeted in the ongoing Open Skies negotiations. I'd argue, "What agreement?"

On the Wall Street front, one of the most well-respected airline analysts is coming back for more fun and frolic. He is going to take over for Mike Linenberg, who is getting ready to flee Bank of America/Merrill Lynch for Deutsche.

Who is the analyst that proves "everything new is old again?"

We also talk about Hudson Securities analyst Dan McKenzie's latest competitive analysis notes. We always like to read these as they give us such a great insight as to how the major players are moving the chess men about the playing field.

We also have a couple of good letters this week, and a whole lot more.

If you are not already a subscriber to PlaneBusiness Banter -- you should be. You can find out more here!

Posted by Holly at 6:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted for your reading pleasure. Subscribers can access the latest issue here.

However, unlike most weeks, I am not going to give you a rundown of what is in this week's issue - because I have to go pick up the pizza for the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship watching party here at the PlaneBusiness Worldwide Headquarters. The cat has to have her pizza. Or else.

More tomorrow guys!

Go Butler! Beat Duke!

Posted by Holly at 6:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks to JetBlue and American Airlines for providing us with a nice bit of April Foolery this year. Yeah, right, they are going to join in some kind of partnership, slot swap, interline agreement.

Good job guys.

Oh, wait.

That was yesterday.

Today is April 1.

Hmmmm.

So what is your take on all this news? I admit it. I was surprised at the news. I thought April Fools Day had come a day early when I first saw the headline.

If you could put two airlines in front of you that exhibit totally different cultures, management attitude, brand, and product -- well, here you go.

If, on the other hand, you want to strip all that out and strictly look at the deal from a strategic viewpoint -- then I can see the merit.

From American's viewpoint, clearly this gives the airline an opportunity to strengthen its position in New York at a relatively low cost -- as opposed to Delta Air Lines, which continues to throw the kitchen sink, the garbage pail, and the baby's bath water into the market in an attempt to snatch market share.

From JetBlue's standpoint, the agreement will allow its passengers to book international flights much more easily, utilizing JetBlue on the domestic segments, and American on the international legs. In addition, JetBlue should would get eight slot pairs at Washington Reagan (which the airline has lusted after for a long time) while American would pick up 12 slot pairs at JFK.

But having said that, we have to wonder -- what does Lufthansa think about all this? Remember, the German uber carrier owns a piece of JetBlue. When the airline first wrote out the check to JetBlue, the assumption was that this was because Lufthansa was less than impressed with Star Alliance partner United Airlines' presence into New York.

What presence? Exactly.

So what happens with all this? How can JetBlue serve two alliance masters?

Aside from that niggly problem, I think this is just another example of what we are now going to continue to see more and more of in this industry -- creative deals that go against what we have seen done in the past. The reason for them? Necessity. Efficiency. This is what is motivating the Delta/US Airways slot swap request. The AirTran/Continental deal.

So, on the surface, I like it. I'd be happy to see even more of these things. (But only if the airlines' respective IT systems are up to the task!)

My only question for JetBlue would be this -- have you surveyed your passengers who fly into JFK as to whom they fly on to Europe? Is American their first choice?

I would be curious to know the answer, because my gut feeling is that someone who is going to fly on JetBlue into JFK and connect to Europe might not necessarily be someone who would fly on American.

Yep. It's that mismash of culture and expectations thing I'm thinking about.

Then again, maybe, just maybe, that might be one of the reasons American was receptive to do the deal. They knew that too.

Posted by Holly at 8:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, so only one of his women dissed Southwest Airlines.

I admit it. I had to go read the excerpts online in the New York Post this afternoon concerning the upcoming Vanity Fair article on Tiger and his women.

And in the midst of the article, where it talks about how cheap he supposedly is -- was this priceless airline-related nugget attributed to Las Vegas nightclub waitress Jamie Jungers.

"Jungers said Tiger's cheapness always bugged her. She recalled how Team Tiger always flew her on discount carrier Southwest Airlines and never in first class."

Well, yes, I guess it's a pretty safe bet that she never flew in first class if they made her fly Southwest.

Ya think?

Clearly intelligence was not a priority item in the selection of these women. But then, we already knew that.

Posted by Holly at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi guys. This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

This week we talk about round two of the British Airways strike -- and about how we think Unite's efforts are -- or are not having -- an effect on the airline's operations.

Meanwhile, there is a pilot strike now scheduled against Lufthansa in two weeks. Not only are the pilots there picking up verbal support from other pilots groups worldwide, but now another airline employee group may join them on the picket line.

Did we just have an outbreak of Norovirus on an airline flight? Yuck.

WestJet's new CEO dropped a bomb in an interview Friday with the Financial Post. Looks like WestJet isn't going to wait on Southwest to get it's IT act together. It's apparently considering a codesharing agreement with Delta. Is this a good move for WestJet? We talk about it -- as well as one of our subscribers who has been taking a closer look at the airline and its market opportunities.

Then there is the slot swap deal involving US Airways and Delta Air Lines. The two airlines don't think the FAA should be involved in the deal at all. Or the DOT.

Want to take a guess as to who they think should make the decision on this proposed deal?

We have a guest columnist this week in PBB. I'm not tellin.'

Airline stocks had a great week again this week, we have the latest "Airline Question of the Week" from Morgan Stanley, and we talk about why it is Barclays is bullish on JetBlue in Beantown.

All this and more - as we all eagerly await the arrival of the Easter Bunny here at the PlaneBusiness Worldwide Headquarters later this week.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 6:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Holly at 8:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You want to know how much money the airline industry had to shell out in additional GDS fees in 2009 as a result of the OTAs dropping their online booking fees?

We know the answer. At least we know how much Forrester Research estimates the airlines lost.

This week in PlaneBusiness Banter I sit down with Henry Harteveldt, VP and Principal Analyst with Forrester Research. We not only talk about the airlines and their additional GDS costs, we talk about onboard Wi-Fi and why AirCell's pricing is too expensive, American's lousy business class seats, Braniff, the shift that Forrester sees happening from legacy carriers to LCCs by corporate travel managers, and, of course, United's decrepit onboard entertainment systems.

In other news, we look at the surprise Continental Airlines pulled on its pilot group last week. Hey, if the pilot group is going to keep waving the Delta Air Lines' pilot contract around -- why not just give it to them? With a few minor revisions. That is exactly what the company has offered as a counter-proposal to what the pilots offered up in December.

Is this a good deal for the airline? For the pilots?

Meanwhile, Unite, the union that represents the cabin crew at British Airways made good on their promise to strike the airline this weekend. The airline estimates it has lost £7 million ($10.6 million) for each of the three days. It also says it will take the rest of the week to get itself re-positioned. Then-- on Saturday, Unite has scheduled to begin a four-day strike against the airline.

Not to be outdone by the British Airways' cabin crew members, pilots at Germanwings and Lufthansa Cargo are now set to join Lufthansa pilots in a strike against that airline in April. After Easter. (That was considerate of them.)

This last week ISTAT held its annual conference in Orlando. We talk about the feedback we received from several subscribers who were in attendance -- and yes, ILFC's Steve Hazy was there talking up his new airline leasing venture.

Meanwhile, lots of regulatory news last week from the FAA, the NTSB, and the Office of the Special Counsel. We talk about all that -- and yep, then there was that "Flight from Hell" on Virgin America last week. JetBlue saved the day. Ouch.

On the analyst front -- Dan McKenzie with Hudson Securities issued an informative research note last week that looks at the changes in the competitive capacity game. We always like those.

All this -- and a lot more. In this week's issue.

Posted by Holly at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi guys. This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

More on this week's issue in just a bit. For now, yours truly has to run out the door and grab some dinner!

Be back in a bit.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 6:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi guys. This week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now available for your perusal. Or you can read it if you prefer. But only if you are a subscriber. Otherwise, I'd prefer that you don't peruse it. Or read it.

This week we have a pretty good issue, if I do say so myself. Obviously we are talking about the latest over at American Airlines as the TWU formally requested to be released from the NMB last week.

But the situation at British Airways is much more serious -- as the labor laws in the U.K. are very different than they are here. There, the union that represents the cabin crew for the airline -- Unite -- has already set strike dates against the airline. The first walk-out is scheduled to start this Saturday and run for three days. Unless something happens between now and then.

This dispute has turned into a first class political fight -- as there is a general election coming up in the U.K. and what happens with British Airways has now become a political hot potato for the Labour government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The Labour party, you see, has been heavily supported by the Unite organization in the past.

But most of U.K residents do not want a strike.

So you can see the problem here -- not to mention the fact that the Conservatives are now running a couple of points ahead in the current polling.

Yes, it's just one bloody mess, as our friend the Brits would say.

Back on this side of the pond, there is a lot of action in Washington these days concerning our beloved things with wings. First, Congress is attempting, one more time, to finally pass an FAA Reauthorization Bill. I'll update you on where all that stands after two major breaks in the logjam were made last week.

The FAA Forecast Conference was held last week in Washington as well -- and yes, NextGen was top of mind with FAA administrator Randy Babbitt -- but there were other things talked about as well. Including high-speed rail.

Then there is the upcoming resumption of negotiations between the EU and the U.S. on a new "Open Skies" agreement. The EU is still saying publicly that there will be no new agreement without a change in the current U.S. airline ownership laws.

The U.S. has not been able to agree to this in the past.

If no agreement is reached here before November -- then the EU has some retaliatory things it can do -- and it would not be pleasant.

The DOT issued its Airline Consumer Travel Report for January last week. We have the numbers. Alaska Air Group had a terrific month overall.

Two Wall Street analysts chimed in with their take on Allegiant's 757 aircraft announcement. We talk about that. We also take a look at an interesting research note that Dan McKenzie, who is with Hudson Securities put out last week on why he thinks a United/Continental deal needs to be done sooner rather than later.

And guess who pops up in the discussion? That's right. Southwest Airlines.

All this and much, much more including the new airport outside of Tokyo that has one flight a day currently scheduled.

It's that Japan Airlines way of looking at the world, I guess.

Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Posted by Holly at 6:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone.

The latest issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

Yours truly attended a wedding this past weekend. That is why I am a day late with this week's issue. As I told subscribers last week -- for the first time in 14 years I left on a weekend and never planned on picking up a laptop. Yay!

But back to the wedding. This was not just any wedding. It was a wedding of two industry employees. One a dedicated union dues-paying member. Another -- an executive member of an airline management team.

No surprise that I ruminate a bit this week on why it is that this industry is so hard on human relationships.

In other news, the JP Morgan Airline Investment Conference kicked off today, and it has already provided some good sound bytes, including a couple from the new sheriff in Houston, Continental Airlines' CEO Jeff Smisek. I really do believe that Jeff is attempting to channel Gordon Bethune -- only he's using a much younger persona.

On the potential airline strike front, it looks, as of this writing, that the cabin crew employees (flight attendants for those of this on this side of the pond) for British Airways could strike the airline as soon as next Wednesday, pending what happened today with talks.

Meanwhile, on this side of the pond, both the mechanics and the flight attendants at American Airlines continue their lock-step move towards both being released from the National Mediation Board from their negotiations with American Airlines. At essentially the same time.

Originally we had expected news on this front yesterday, but the NMB has asked both sides to keep talking. But we could get a release to a 30-day cooling off period before the end of the week for one or both unions, depending on what happens tomorrow.

We talk about this in this week's issue. How close is the airline to a potential strike? Pretty damn close. And the fact that the two unions are more or less joined at the hip in terms of the timetable here -- that does not help the airline at all. It gives the unions much more clout.

Airline stocks had another good week last week. And, as expected, the traffic and RASM estimates from those airlines that provide them have been almost -- across the board -- as expected or better. Southwest Airlines was a little light for some reason -- but the rest of the numbers have looked just as strong as the industry analysts had projected.

On another topic, we apparently have a new airline lurking in the weeds. Sorry. No more info until the end of the month.

And finally -- Allegiant Travel Company announced it was buying six 757-200s. The airline, which up until now has only flown Maddogs, is going to use the aircraft for new service to Hawaii. Hmmm. I can see it now. Des Moines to Maui.

Or something like that.

All this and more in this week's issue of PBB.

Posted by Holly at 7:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello everyone.

The latest issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Subscribers can access this week's issue here.

So who do we dissect this week?

Republic Holdings.

I'll be honest. I'm still on the fence with this attempt by Bryan Bedford and the Republic management team to cobble together a new airline out of discarded parts of Midwest and Frontier Airlines.

I was hoping that this quarter we could get more visibility from the airline's earnings results as to how the grand experiment is faring -- but while Wall Street apparently liked the airline's results (the airline's stock led the sector this last week picking up a cool 14%), I didn't hear anything that really won me over.

So -- call me "continued skeptical."

Had to snicker when the airline talked about how it was "harvesting synergies" of the Midwest/Frontier combo. "Harvesting synergies".....fine example of corporate speak.

That kind of stuff makes me break out in hives.

We had one other regional airline report earnings this last week and that airline was ExpressJet. If you look only at the airline's net profit numbers, it would appear that the airline did pretty well for the quarter. But no -- the reason the airline posted a profit was because of a huge both cash and non-cash tax issue. The airline posted a $17 million operating loss -- that was also a clear indicator that no, this was not that good of a quarter.

Meanwhile, the airline remains without a permanent CEO. You may recall that the airline's CEO Jim Ream left the airline effective Jan. 1 -- as he took the SVP of Maintenance and Engineering gig at American Airlines.

The weather certainly created a whole slew of new cancellations last week for many of the U.S. carriers. Adding to the pain of the New York area airspace - the longest runway at JFK International was officially shut down today -- as the airport prepares to rebuild and widen it. It will be closed for four months.

I know. Let the fun begin.

On the economic front, it was another yin-yang week for economic tea leaf reading, but on the airline economic/RASM front, analysts continue to fall all over themselves about just how great year-over-year RASM numbers are going to be for the next 3-4 months.

Or as JP Morgan analyst Jamie Baker said at one point, "If it flies, buy it!" Actually Jamie acknowledged last week that he is not quite that bullish now -- but tonight we should get our first glimpse of higher RASM numbers -- as Continental rolls out its February traffic report.

All this and more, including Japan Air Line's horrendous loss, Air New Zealand's nice profit, Aircell's win at Alaska Air Group, fighting flight attendants, a new high-end, but reasonably priced crash pad for pilots in Houston, and more in this week's issue of PlaneBusiness Banter .

Posted by Holly at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The energy gods have shown down upon the Worldwide Headquarters. There is once again electricity humming through the lines to the great outside world. Which means the computers are buzzing, the printers are printing, the washer is washing, the dryer is drying, the stove top is cooking, the television is yapping, and most importantly -- Holly got to take a nice hot shower and get cleaned up!

Ahhhhh. I can't remember the last time a shower felt so good.

As for PlaneDad, my thanks to the folks at Expedient Home Health services, who managed to find us a place to move him to -- had the energy gods not decided to play nice. But since it's warm again, he says he isn't going anywhere.

The man knows the food is definitely better if he stays here. (That's assuming the electricity stays on!)

Posted by Holly at 3:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Holly at 8:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm sitting here waiting for final edits to be done on this week's issue of PBB, and was just looking at the wild party going on with airline stocks today.

In case some of you are wondering what is going on with the sector today -- which is up significantly across the board -- United Airlines issued the first of its revised format traffic reports after the close of the market yesterday.

As CFO Kathy Mikells discussed in the airline's recent earnings call -- and we talked about in PlaneBusiness Banter -- she is attempting to increase the level of transparency in the airline's financial reporting. As a result, the airline is now going to provide a RASM estimate, along with the usual traffic information in its monthly traffic release. The airline is also going to provide an update as to its current fuel costs.

Airlines like Continental, JetBlue, and US Airways already provide RASM estimates when they report their monthly traffic numbers.

When the new-look United Airlines release hit the wires last night -- all of us received quite a shock.

The airline easily blew past analyst forecast RASM numbers -- as the airline estimated that its RASM in January was up between 9.5% and 11.5%. Analysts had forecast a figure somewhere between 3% and 6% -- depending on the analyst.

So -- there you go. That is why airline stocks are frolicking today.

At last check, shares of United were up 17% for the day, trading at about 15.28.

Posted by Holly at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An advisory for our PlaneBusiness Banter subscribers. The latest issue will be posted today. My apologies for the delay. No, I am not still celebrating the Saints win Sunday night. No, no. I wish that was my excuse.

No, as most of you know, PlaneDad is camped out at the Worldwide Headquarters, as he recuperates from surgery to repair his broken hip.

Things generally have been going well on that front, but this weekend was rough, (a follow-up from some aggressive physical therapy on Friday) and Monday was a rather, er, trying day.

Hey, life happens.

This week's issue of PBB will be posted later today. I'll post a note here as I always do after it is up and ready for your perusal.

Now -- go do what you usually do on Tuesdays.

Posted by Holly at 9:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thank you all for your patience as I try and absorb what I witnessed on television Sunday night. Forty three years of abject frustration and crushed hopes are now history.

The old visuals in my mind? When that damn field goal kicker for the Los Angeles Rams kicked one down the middle to keep the Saints out of the playoffs in the mid-80s. Or then there is the video in my head of the Monday Night Football game I attended in the Dome when Kenny Stabler and the Oakland Raiders erased a 28 point half-time deficit to come back and beat the Saints. Aint's bags. Archie Manning being booed off the field and trash dumped on his head.

I suppose my greatest ire is reserved for Saints owner Tom Benson, who clearly thought he was going to pick up the team and move it to San Antonio after Katrina. Watching him and his squirmy comments after Katrina made me want to reach through my television and strangle him.

But thankfully -- then-NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue had other ideas. Thank you Paul.

This morning, I am happy to report that the new visual in my mind is that of Drew Brees with his son on the podium last night -- enjoying the moment.

May we all have those times in our lives when we too can -- enjoy the moment.

Speaking of -- any of you want to enjoy a PlaneBuzz moment?

After the return of our long-lost guest columnist Frank Arciuolo last week, (and yes, I was glad to read that some of you got as much of a kick out of his photo as I did), I wanted to let all of you know that, yes, PlaneBuzz is always open to guess columnists.

Last year I began to focus more of my time and attention to our flagship publication of the PlaneBusiness empire, PlaneBusiness Banter. Why? Because those folks who subscribe to PBB deserve the bulk of my attention.

There are any number of blog sites/news sites now that can give you news-breaking tidbits about the various airline-industry antics. At no charge.

But I have no desire to try and compete in that league. I can't. Unless I want to go on food stamps and bask in the knowledge that I am working for a non-profit entity.

And no, I have no desire to do that. No sir-ee.

As a result, for the last six months or so I have struggled with just what I should and should not write about here in PlaneBuzz.

Going forward, I would like to hear from more of you about whatever topics are important to you -- and if you'd like to jot down some of your own thoughts -- just drop me an email.

In addition, from time to time, I am now going to post material from PBB either directly here in PlaneBuzz or I will link to it from here, enabling everyone to read certain columns or interviews. But these will be posted on a delayed basis. Subscribers to PBB will continue to get first dibs.

The first of these reposted pieces will come this week, when, after a tremendous number of requests to do so, I will let everyone read my recent interview with the Chairman of the Delta Air Lines ALPA MEC -- Lee Moak.

Again, look for access to that lengthy interview here in PlaneBuzz this week.

But again -- if any of you have a desire to tell all of us how you feel about something pertaining to the airline industry -- drop me a note. We can hash it out. Polish it up. And give you your own chance at having your own PlaneBuzz "moment."

Submission inquiries can be sent directly to me at hhegeman@planebusiness.com.

Just put "Buzz Comment" in the header of the email.

Now, excuse me while I go finish the in-depth earnings report on Allegiant Travel Company, parent of Allegiant Airlines, that will be included in this week's PlaneBusiness Banter. Yep, another mega-earnings issue is on tap this week. This week we have an interesting mix of airlines that we take a closer look at -- AirTran, Allegiant, and Alaska Air Group.

Posted by Holly at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Holly at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Holly at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Editor's Note: This week I welcome a previous contributor to PlaneBuzz, Frank Arciuolo. Frank has not been seen around these parts in a long time. For reasons he talks about in his latest effort. I figure he felt sorry for me after it took him two hours to read this week's issue of PBB, and thought the environs around here had been much too quiet!

In his previous efforts in PlaneBuzz, we used a "Godzilla" rendering for his ID photo. I figured it's time you get to see the real deal. Mud and all. Enjoy!

Hi there, Godzilla here. I know it’s been a very long time since I’ve contributed to PlaneBuzz but I’ve been preoccupied with some of the more mundane things in life – like trying to find gainful employment. My plan when I left my last job at the beginning of 2008 was to do some part time flight instruction and get a part time job as an FO on a corporate jet – I even got my CE500 type rating.However, like they did so many other people, circumstances conspired against me. Taking flying lessons is well down the list of priorities for most people now, if it makes the list at all. And right seat jobs in corporate aviation are as scarce as, well, the hair on my head.

But, I digress. Anyway, thanks to Holly for letting me fill my idle time and the pages of PlaneBuzz simultaneously.

You know the feeling an ex-airport ticket agent gets when he/she wakes up on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, looks out the window to see dense fog – then rolls over and goes back to sleep because they are off that day? That’s the feeling I got when reading about recent events at WestJet concerning their reservations system cutover and the system cutover at JetBlue this weekend.

In my previous lives I’ve participated in about 8 reservation system cutovers; one as an airline employee and the others as an interested bystander, AKA a vendor. My advice to any IT person working at an airline that is considering switching reservations systems is to dust off the resume and start networking (the people kind). People in the reservations system business (the “biz”) often refer euphemistically to a reservations system cutover as a migration. That’s a nice word, migration. It gives one the vision of a flock of Canadian geese traveling to MIA for a nice warm winter.

However a reservations system migration, or at least the ones I’ve been involved in, does NOT resemble a migration of birds to South Beach for the winter. Picture a reservations system migration as a flock of 1 million geese leaving Canada on a Friday night. On Saturday morning nobody can find ANY geese ANYWHERE. By Saturday mid afternoon 3 million birds arrive in Tampa, but only 25% of them are actually the geese that left Canada Friday night, the rest are pigeons. By Saturday night trucks have been chartered to take ALL of the birds from TPA to MIA because nobody wants to let them out of their sight. The trucks arrive in MIA Sunday morning and are gone through manually (by IT employees) to determine which are the geese they want to keep and which are the pigeons. Sunday night the airline CEO does the math and realizes that 25% of 3 million does NOT equal the 1 million geese he had Friday night. Where are the rest of the geese? Holy crap, what’d we do with those pigeons? Resumes and bird poo simultaneously hit the mail and the fan Monday morning.

Funny story, yes, but perhaps more real than you think. Airline reservations are literally money in the bank. Moving this valuable asset from one point in cyber space to another is fraught with land mines. There are a host of technical issues that would make your eyes glaze over and I’d be happy to talk about them in detail to any other IT geeks out there, but that’s not today’s point.

Since migrating is such a gut wrenching experience where the BEST result is a zero sum gain (and the worst result is working in bird poo), don’t do it! Some cutovers are unavoidable, like the DL/NW move and whatever will eventually happen with YX/F9 and the boyz in IND. Those cases also represent mergers/acquisitions, where the party on each side of the transaction has an interest in avoiding a train wreck. Migrations that are the riskiest are the ones where an airline is changing reservations systems they may have outgrown, or perhaps for a better deal.

Traditional hosting or multi host systems are very good at high volume transactions and at communicating with Global Distribution Systems (GDS) and other systems. Because they communicate with external systems so well, traditional host systems can greatly expand an airline’s distribution reach. However, since those external systems, by design, withhold certain information from the host system (like fare basis code, form of payment, and other key customer information), the host system has difficulty figuring out of someone booking in an external system has simply reserved a seat or has actually purchased a ticket. Traditional host systems are excellent for generating large volumes of bookings and they can ensure tickets are purchased on booking within its system, but not as good as ensuring the purchase of bookings made outside its system.

The newer reservations systems are much slicker at communicating with customers within their system and with the airline’s web site, but are not very good at communicating with outside GDS and other systems. Like the traditional hosting systems, they are good at forcing the customer to purchase a ticket before ending the reservation. One big advantage they have over traditional hosting systems is that the newer systems create a database of the airline reservations. A real database allows the airline to do detailed analysis of its customers and to effectively execute Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) to its customers based on their purchases. This type of information makes airline marketing people salivate at the possibilities for the easiest type of marketing there is – to your existing customer.

For a boutique type airline starting out that has made the decision to remain out of the GDS and its evil and expensive booking fees, the selection of a reservations system would lean towards one that allows better CRM. However if the airline grows to a point where expanding the distribution network is necessary, as is agreeing to booking fees and all the rest, they’ve chosen the wrong reservations hosting system.

It makes sense to either add the robust external communication feature to the true reservation database system, or add the relational database feature to the traditional hosting systems. The first system to truly do that will have the golden egg. However, there are immense technical challenges of taking the incredibly dense set of text files (which is really what they are) that are contained in the reservations systems of AA, UA, DL, etc. and indexing them into a relational database. That would seem to argue for a solution that “bolts on” to the big hosting system and allows both systems to do what they do best.  

Until this happens, try to be on vacation the weekend your airline reservations migrate!

Posted by Holly at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's been almost 12 hours, but the shock has still not completely worn off.

Or maybe it's just my mind and body trying to get back to some semblance of normal after experiencing almost four hours of what was a roller coaster of emotions consisting primarily of terror and anxiety, interrupted occasionally by bursts of excitement. Only to be followed by attempts to keep that nauseous sense of dread from taking over the ride.

Yes, the New Orleans Saints are headed to the Superbowl.

There, they will meet New Orleans-native son Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts.

Yes, that same Peyton Manning who grew up watching his father, quarterback Archie Manning, staring up at the roof of the Superdome more often than not on Sunday afternoons -- as the New Orleans Saints of another era were routinely pummeled by opposing teams.

Did I ever possess an "Aint's Bag"? Of course I did. Yours truly can remember many a game in the Superdome where I, along with a group of close pals, would drag in boxes of Popeye's Fried Chicken, along with the requisite strategically hidden stashes of liquid additives for our Coca-Colas, up to the nosebleed seats in the Terrace level in the Louisiana Superdome. Then, almost without fail, we would masochistically endure yet another heart-breaking loss by the then-hapless boys in the black and gold.

But not before we had made our hands sore and red from banging on the aluminum panels that cover the walls in the upper deck of the stadium. They made a huge racket.

And not before we had completely lost our voices.

But for some strange reason, we never lost our faith.

Faith in the team, and, well, in the city itself. And trust me, living in New Orleans will test your faith every single day -- in one way or another.

In fact, the game last night? Long periods of anxiety interrupted by bursts of over-the-top happiness, overlaid with this huge sense of dread that threatens to take over at any time? Yep. That's is essentially the metaphor for what it means to live in the city.

As I tell a lot of people -- it's just too damn complicated to explain. But once you