Hello everyone!

Oh my, oh my! It is rather exciting in the DFW Metromess tonight. Reports indicate that the UCC, and the board of directors at both American Airlines and US Airways have approved a merger between the two airlines.

Whew. Finally!

We should see a formal release around 7:30 in the morning, an analyst call after that, and a press conference at DFW International at 10 AM. At some point later in the day the members of the US Airways’ management team will fly back to Phoenix for a press event there.

Details leaked this afternoon indicate that the deal is pretty much what we have outlined previously in PBB – a 72/28 equity split, current US Airways Chairman and CEO Doug Parker will become CEO of American Airlines, the headquarters will be in Dallas.

However, it does appear that while current AMR Chairman and CEO Tom Horton will stay on in a non-executive role — his stay will be much shorter than the 2-year period that had been rumored a couple of weeks ago. Sounds like he may stay only into the early part of 2014.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

But hey, we have a lot of other things we are talking about in this week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter. We have complete reports on the recent fourth quarter earnings reported by Air Canada and WestJet. We also take a summary look at the numbers from both Ryanair and Singapore Air.

We also have the December 2012 and full-year DOT Air Travel Consumer Report rundown.

In addition, we spend a lot of time this week talking about Boeing. And dendrites. And Dr. Goodenough.

No, I’m not making this up.

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