Holy $%(@ Batman.

What a morning.

It took me more than an hour just to get through the emails. Then almost another hour reading all the great earnings news. NOT.

Wow, where do we start?

First, let’s take a look at the price of oil. It’s on the march again — and looks like we are going to hit yet another record today unless something major changes between now and the close of trading.

Right now a barrel of crude is trading at about $119.50.

$120/barrel here we come.

But that may not be the worst news out there for the airline industry this morning.

No, United Airlines looks like it took care of that. Then again, AirTran is not too far behind.

First — United Airlines posted a horrible set of first quarter numbers today. Horrible.

The airline reported a loss of $537 million or $4.45 a share. This did not compare favorably, as they say, to last year, when the airline reported a loss of $152 million or $1.32. Analyst consensus here had been for the airline to post a loss of $3.41 a share — so it is no wonder why shares are now down about 32% ON THE DAY.

Shares in United, as we post this, are down 34% to 14.24.

Meanwhile, shares of AirTran are being beaten up as well. Shares here are presently down 23%, trading at 3.50.

Kind of strange thing with AirTran. The airline moved up its earnings call on very short notice to today. It was originally scheduled for Thursday.

I figured it was so the airline could come out and reassure investors about its  credit card processing hold back situation, cash levels, etc.

No.

Instead, the airline announced this morning that it was going to do a $65 million convertible note offering — an acknowledgment that yes, it is short on cash. Oh, and the airline didn’t post very encouraging first quarter numbers either.

The airline reported a first- quarter loss of $34.8 million or $0.38. This compares to last year, when the airline posted a profit of $2.16 million, or $0.02.

Analyst consensus here had been for the airline to post a loss of 32 cents, so while the airline missed, it wasn’t as big a miss as United. But the results, along with the airline’s liquidity issue, was still enough to spook the street.



Finally, JetBlue also reported earnings today, and considering the results posted by its two competitors — the airline did pretty well.

JetBlue posted a loss of $8 million or $0.04 in the quarter. That is an improvement from a loss of $22 million or $0.12 in the first quarter of 2007, and was three cents better than the analysts’ consensus figure of a loss of 7 cents.

Remember though that comps here were relatively easy for the airline — the result of last year’s St. Valentine’s Day Meltdown.

If you haven’t looked at your favorite airline stock today, I’d recommend caution. As of this posting, every airline stock is down for the day — with some stocks posing very large declines. Throwing out the aforementioned selloffs in United and AirTran, it’s clear that investors are not looking at the proposed Delta-Northwest deal as a trip to nirvana, as shares of Delta are now down 13% to 7.12, and shares of Northwest Airlines are down 15% to 7.74.

Even shares of Continental are not immune to the pressure this morning, as they are now down 12% to 18.30, while shares of AMR are down 11%, trading at 7.30.

Yikes.

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