Big day in airlineland today. American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines all reported second quarter earnings.

For PlaneBusiness Banter subscribers, we’ll be taking a longer look at the results and the respective airline’s earnings calls in this week’s issue.

But in the meantime, here is a short and sweet take on the results posted today.

Let’s start first with Southwest Airlines. Today the airline reported net income of $278 million or $0.36 a share. This compares not-so-favorably to last year when the airline reported net income of $333 million or $0.40 a share. Yes, net income was down 17%. The problem here? Slowing demand and rising fuel costs.

The sluggish demand could be seen clearly in the airline’s load factor numbers. The airline added 9.2% more available seat miles for the quarter, but revenue passenger miles increased by only 6.6%, resulting in a 1.85 load factor point drop to 76.1%.

Yield was down 1.7% while RASM declined 4.1%.

See why certain folks, including me, have been questioning Southwest’s continued push to add more capacity since last fall? (Although I still think we were first.)

In the case of American, the airline posted net income of $317 million or $1.08 per diluted share.  This was slightly less than the analyst consensus of $1.19.

In the airline’s press release, it said that “weather disruptions” cost it about $0.12 per share.  The results represented AMR’s fifth consecutive profitable quarter. A year ago, AMR reported diluted EPS of $1.14, however, that was on 12% fewer shares outstanding.

While there’s no question the airline has been beset with weather issues, particularly in and around DFW this spring –  the issue here, I think, is whether or not the weather issues have been the only source of operational problems.  American is not the only airline to have faced “weather-related” issues in the second quarter. Yet they seem to be blaming a much larger hit to their results as a side-effect of such problems. At least in terms of the three airlines that reported results today.

Finally, Delta Air Lines reported earnings today as well. As we said last week in PBB, Delta revenue management guru Gail Grimmett has had good reason to do her secret little RASM dance with her tambourine of late. These results give us hard numbers as to why this is the case.

The airline reported the best numbers of the three airlines that reported in today. The strength here? Revenues. The airline reported net income of $1.77 billion, or $4.49 a share, compared to a loss of $2.21 billion in the same period a year earlier. Excluding reorganization and related one-time items, Delta had a profit of $274 million, or $0.70 cents a share, in the second quarter. This easily beat analysts’ consensus, which had forecast a profit of $0.59 a share.

Okay guys. Off to listen to calls.

Ticker: (NYSE:LCC), (NYSE:AMR), (NYSE:DAL)

Let’s get the tally of those airlines aspiring to fly to China updated. The scorecard is getting pretty full.

First — American. As we had reported earlier in PBB, American applied Monday to fly from O’Hare to Beijing. (Remember, the airline can fly this route without having to obtain a new agreement with the Allied Pilots Association — unlike a nonstop from Dallas Ft.Worth to Beijing).

Continental Airlines also filed their formal application Monday. CAL wants to fly between Newark and Shanghai.

United has filed to fly between San Francisco and Guangzhou starting in 2008, and between Los Angeles and Shanghai in 2009.

US Airways, meanwhile, wants to fly between Philadelphia and Beijing.

But wait — there’s more.

Delta Air Lines wants to fly between Atlanta to Beijing and Shanghai, while Northwest wants to fly between Detroit and Beijing and Shanghai.

Finally, there’s MAXjet. Yep, MAXjet. The privately-held all-business class airline that currently flies trans-atlantic flights, has filed to fly between Seattle and Beijing.

The DOT is now accepting carrier applications for six flights that will be launched in the next two years-one apiece this year and next, and four in 2009.

In a move that would tend to support the idea that Southwest Airlines sees growth slowing and costs continuing to escalate, the airline is making a buyout offer to about 8700 employees. That number represents about 25% of the airline’s total workforce.

The workers have until Aug. 10 to accept the offers, which began showing up in their mailboxes Monday, said Brandy King, a Southwest spokeswoman today. She said the company didn’t have a target number of job or cost reductions it hoped to achieve.

Southwest said it is offering $25,000 in cash plus health and dental benefits to 8,700 flight attendants, baggage handlers, customer service agents and supervisors, reservations sales agents and their bosses, and freight agents who handle cargo shipments and other employees.

The offer wasn’t extended to pilots and mechanics.

While this is not the first time the airline has offered a buy-out option to employees, it is certainly the largest effort on the part of the airline — and points to how serious the airline takes the issue of mounting costs.

I have mixed feelings on this one. Clearly some of the airline’s most experienced workers are the ones being targeted with this effort — as it is clearly aimed at those employees at the top of the pay scales. And that makes me kind of sad, frankly. Don’t you want your most experienced employees on the front line and working with employees?

But, if the process has  been targeted well — it might not  be such a bad idea.

Remember — Southwest has never laid any employees off from their position.

And over the last several years, the question of the company continuing to carry perhaps too much “internal padding” has cropped up from time to time.

As they say, the devil is in the details. Meanwhile, the news does bring a mixed reaction.

Ticker: (NYSE:LUV)

Note, I said vocation, not vacation.

In case you have been wondering where I have been the last couple of days — have no fear. I’m alive and well.

And working on my new job title — funeral memorial service planner.

Honestly — I don’t see how families do this without some outside help. The flowers, the set-up of the room, the amassing of photos — or in my case, the amassing of slides, the scanning and the printing of the prints. The phone calls asking friends of my mother to speak, the music choices, and that age old question — what are we going to have for people to nibble on?

Then there is the issue of my mother’s artwork. Both paintings and photographs. How many can I find? (My mother, bless her heart, never catalogued her artwork. I have no idea who has what, when they purchased it, or which picture it was. )

Meanwhile the two local art associations are joining forces to offer their support — which is most appreciated. Especially considering that the funeral home here seems to be a little, er, lacking in their support supplies for memorial services, i.e., large boards to hold photos of your loved one, and other such niceties that have now become more the rule than the exception for memorial services.

And when I asked them today to confirm that yes, I could put together a music list on my iPod and plug it into their music system, I was told no. If we used the music system, the music would play throughout the building, not just the area we will be using.

So what good is it? And why was my father and I told that the system would be available to us?

Oh, but I can bring a portable music system if I want to.

Can you tell I’m venting?

Oh, and if you are thinking what I’m thinking, i.e., go to another funeral home — I can’t. The other one in Slidell, LA had 8 feet of water in it during Hurricane Katrina and was never rebuilt.

Okay guys. For those of you who are PlaneBusiness Banter subscribers, you can now access this week’s issue of PBB here.

Hi everyone. This week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter should be posted no later than 9:30 CDT. I’ll be back when we’re up and ready for public consumption.

Okay, I’m on a rant this morning. Just read a Reuters piece by Kyle Peterson that was posted on USAToday.com.

In this piece entitled, “Pilot frustration mounts over US Airways merger” Peterson claims, “While the intra-union seniority debate rages, ALPA also is trying to reach agreement with US Airways on a contract that covers both pilot groups.”

That’s not exactly the case.

He then goes on to infer that US Airways might not be in a hurry to negotiate a contract — given the fact that a new contract would cost the airline more money.

Trust me. Management at US Airways knows that a single contract situation will save the company money. But, as CEO Doug Parker has said over and over, the company is not going to pay more than what is equivalent to a “cost neutral” contract — compared to the existing US Airways (West) contract.

Oh, and yes — that type of contract would also pay US Airways’ (East)  pilots more money — because management at US Airways has already said it will take the existing US Airways (West) contract (which is more lucrative) and apply it to the pilots at US Airways (East).

But the major point here is this. And this is what Mr. Peterson’s article did not say. NO contract is going to be successfully negotiated as long as the US Airways (East) pilots are fighting the ALPA arbitration seniority award. Period.

Interesting also that Peterson did not talk to the US Airways (West) MEC Chairman for his piece — he only talked to Jack Stephan, who is head of the US Airways (East) group. Needless to say, there is a big difference in opinion between Mr. Stephan and his cohorts on the other side.

I don’t think Peterson makes this distinction clearly enough in his article. Rather, he implies that 1) the pilots are fighting over seniority. And 2) the airline is in no hurry to come to terms on a new contract. Conclusion: “Pilot Frustration Mounts Over US Airways Merger.”

No, the US Airways (East) pilots are fighting over seniority in what is basically an intra-ALPA cat fight. The US Airways (West) pilots aren’t stalling the process at all.

And two, management at US Airways is fully aware that a single contract is to the benefit of the airline. But that doesn’t mean they are going to roll over and give away the store in negotiations either.

Ticker: (NYSE:LCC)