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.