Hello everyone! Our last issue of PlaneBusiness Banter for 2013 is now posted!

I’m sure you will not be surprised to find out that this week’s issue is dominated by coverage of Monday’s events in Dallas. That’s right. US Airways and American Airlines are now officially merged, trading under the ticker symbol AAL. While they are merged, as most of you know, both airlines will continue to operate as separate entities until the carrier can obtain a Single Operating Certificate. But in the meantime, look for codesharing to start soon, we expect to see some schedule changes announced shortly and today, the airline announced a new regional jet order.

It’s not going to be quiet around here.

It was a pretty spectacular day at Centreport on Monday. We were there, and we’ll tell you all about it.

All in all, a definite shift in culture going on at Centreport. The employees of American deserve it.

In other news, Delta Air Lines held their annual Investor Day presentation in New York on Wednesday. We’ve got a copy of the presentation deck for subscribers. As I say in this week’s issue, the airline was specific, thorough, and extremely helpful in providing information about what the airline intends to do in 2014 and how it plans to do it. We like that.

What can we say about the phenomenally successful WestJet Christmas video? Except that at last glance it had been viewed more than 15 million times. Bravo. Best airline Christmas video ever!

This week we also talk to our mole at the North Pole, Clyde the Elf. Clyde once again graciously (and secretly) gave us access to airline CEO letters to Santa this week. Boy, did we learn a lot!

Last week was not a good week for airline stocks. Hey, it happens. Rising oil prices are a short-term headache. I’m not overly concerned.

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