Good evening everyone. This week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

This week we are talking about a lot of things. First, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane okayed the AMR Disclosure Statement and Plan of Reorganization this week. No surprise here. The next step? The vote of the unsecured creditors on the Statement and the Plan. Trust me, they are going to vote yes.

After that, everyone is expected back in court on Aug. 15 when, hopefully, most of the legal mumbo-jumbo involving the bankruptcy will be hashed out and from that point — it won’t be that much longer before the process is wrapped up.

The one big outstanding piece of business? The Department of Justice review of the merger.  Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that the DOJ does not make this a difficult process. I think all parties want this thing to be signed off on as soon as possible.

In other news, we talk about the IATA AGM that took place this week in Cape Town, we are happy that the TSA came to its senses and decided not to allow knives onboard aircraft again, and we talk about why we still feel the new American Airlines management team will look, and should look, very much like the one we recently saw on stage at the US Airways Leadership Conference.

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

Hello everyone. This week we come to you from the wonderful comfy confines of Manhattan. My old stomping grounds.

Yours truly is in town for Delta Air Lines’ roll out of their new Terminal 4 at JFK Friday. Today, I made my way over to the Wings Club, where Delta Air Lines’ CEO Richard Anderson spoke to a packed house.

And yes, we’re all drinking Coca-Cola. And eating moon pies.

Well, maybe not.

This week in PlaneBusiness Banter we take an in-depth look at the recent earnings calls from Air Canada and WestJet. Ryanair also announced record annual earnings (through Mar.31) this week.

Meanwhile, this week United Airlines re-launched the 787 into passenger service. And, just in case anyone had forgotten about their operation in Newark, (as a result of the media onslaught involving the Delta T4 rollout this week) United also announced a $150 million upgrade to its Terminal C facility at Newark.

SkyWest announced a new aircraft order this week. The airline announced it firm orders for 40 76-seat E175 aircraft with two-class cabins. The aircraft will fly under new 12-year contracts for United Airlines.  

We also take a look at the March DOT Air Travel Consumer Report. We had a lot of hot competition in many of the categories this month — was fun to dissect.

The airline sector had a pretty good week on Wall Street. And those shares of bankrupt AMR just keep going and going and going. We give a shout out this week to the JP Morgan dynamic analyst duo of Jamie Baker and Mark Streeter. They made the AAMRQ call more than two months ago — and the shares have, for the most part, never looked back.

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

This week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. Yes, we ran into some difficulties last night as we were working back and forth with our editor, while nasty weather rolled through the DFW Metromess. Sometimes it is wise to just unplug the machine.

I hope none of our readers were directly affected by the 10 or more tornadoes that ripped through DFW Wednesday evening. Ugly stuff.

This week we bring you yet another earnings packed issue, as we take an in-depth look at the recent earnings calls from Spirit, Republic Holdings, and SkyWest. 

We also bring you another column in which we take you once again to the recent Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airline Symposium. This time the subject is: Labor.

On the international front, Emirates reported blockbuster earnings last week, while IAG lagged. Can we say “Iberia?”

Meanwhile on the US Airways/American Airlines front, we had two labor things of note to talk about this week. One, the TWU and the IAM have joined forces to represent roughly 30,000 employees at the new airline. While this “joint” representational effort is not the first of its kind (there is already one in place at US Airways involving another employee group) it is certainly the largest.

While out in Phoenix, federal district court judge Roslyn Silver basically told the pilot group from America West and the pilot group from the old US Airways this week to go to their respective rooms and come up with a seniority agreement. In seven days.

Hey, if God could do it in seven days, they should be able to, right?

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

Hello everybody. It’s that time again. This week’s edition of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted!

And it is gigantic.

This week we take an in-depth look at the recent 1Q earnings reports from Southwest Airlines; Alaska Air Group; JetBlue; Allegiant Travel Company, and Hawaiian Airlines. 

What caused the big uptick in costs at JetBlue this quarter? Are the guys at Hawaiian crazy — or really smart? Allegiant management rolled out a new earnings call format, and Wolfe Trahan analyst Hunter Keay got involved in a rather spirited “discussion” about hedging with the folks at Alaska Airlines. 

As for Southwest, they are almost three years into the AirTran merger and they have just come to the realization that flight schedules at AirTran need to be optimized? Codesharing just began? There’s been some serious money left on the table there over the last several years.

In addition we give you our take on the US Airways Leadership Conference that we attended in Scottsdale last week. No, I don’t think the the invited guests from American quite knew what to think about all of it.

Meanwhile, up in Chicago, we update you on some rather ugly goings-on in United’s flight ops department. Ex-Cons out, United legacy folks in. The moves are not sitting well with many of our subscribers. We’ll tell you why.

It was a great week for airline stocks last week, and this week both the Dow and the S&P 500 have set new records.

All this and much more in this week’s 125-page plus edition of PlaneBusines Banter. 

Hello everyone. It has been a long day for yours truly. Actually a long two days, as this week’s issue was compressed into a two day writing adventure. Tomorrow, I will be at this year’s US Airways’ Media Day bright and early. Put the two together, and yes, your PBB preview will be brief this evening!

This week we talk about some of the more interesting comments and discussions we heard at the recent CAPA “Airlines in Transition” Conference in Dublin. Essentially, forget the old rules is what it comes down to. The airline industry, worldwide, is going through a period of instability and change.

Surprised?

You shouldn’t be. As positive as consolidation has been for the industry in the US, we still have problems. There are still airlines that get it — and those that don’t. Alliances? The branded alliances are merely one part of what an airline should be looking at in terms of JVs, partnerships and more. Low cost carriers? Some of them want to try and steal some of that high-yield business while some legacy carriers are trying to compete with the low-cost guys.

It’s a jungle out there.

We also talk this week about the latest on the AMR merger, we give you one Wall Street analyst’s views on just how much sequestration could cost the industry, and well, you know, we talk about a lot of other things as well.

All — in this week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

Hello everyone. It’s that time again. The latest issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

Last week yours truly was traipsing around Dublin, where I attended the CAPA “Airlines in Transition” Conference. But before that, I ventured down to Austin, where I spoke to the fine  folks at the GBTA Texas Education Day, sponsored by the Austin Business Travel Association.

As a result, we had really too much to talk about in this week’s issue. I’ll follow up in our next issue with all the goodies we didn’t have room for this week.

Another thing I did last week was fly out of Love Field. It was the first time I’ve flown out of the airport since they opened the new check-in areas. This week they opened up the gate areas. I may have to plan another trip on Southwest Airlines just so I can  check out the new digs. For those of you who live in the DFW area and have not yet seen the new terminal upgrades, you’re in for a real treat.

In this week’s issue I also talk about the feedback I received from the business travel group in Austin. Bottomline? Since it was pretty much a Texas-centric group, Southwest Airlines was top of mind. Unfortunately for Southwest,  that position was not because of positive reasons. Yep. Heard a lot of complaints. About a number of things.

Meanwhile, when I was in Dublin, Travelport rolled out their new hybrid GDS product — the one they had been hinting about last month when I was out in San Diego speaking to their top clients.

I like it. A lot. easyJet is the company’s first client that is using the new hybrid product that lets agents and TMCs access both direct connection feeds and more traditional GDS listings all on one screen.

From an airline perspective, it allows an airline to provide content in either the more traditional manner as is the case now with the GDS companies — or the airline can provide fare and product information directly through an API.

More on all this in this week’s issue as well.

We also get you up to speed on the traffic stats for March, the DOT Air Travel Consumer results from February, and all kinds of other stuff as well.

In our next issue, I’ll talk more about  the conference in Dublin — and I’ll give my review of Delta Air Lines’ new Business Elite lie flat seats. I’ll give you a hint — as tall as I am, I could stretch out completely flat. THAT is a good thing.

But that is next week.

A very quick post to let our subscribers know that this week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted! Subscribers can access this week’s issue here!

Gotta go meet some airline buds for lunch!

Good evening everyone. This week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

Yes, it’s a Friday night edition this week. I think we’ll probably have another one published on Friday next week as well. Does screw up the Market Review section. I ended up putting charts and graphs in for both last week and this week. I trust subscribers can figure it all out! Just a necessary evil when yours truly is traipsing about the countryside.

This week it was Orlando and the 2013 ISTAT Americas conference.

Next week I’m off to San Diego and a Travelport Executive Client Retreat.

The next week? New York.

That’s as far as I’m going out on the calendar. But April is pretty nutty as well.

As I said, this week I was in Orlando at the ISTAT Americas Conference. For those of you who are not familiar with the organization, this is the conference you attend if you lease, sell, buy, maintain, refurb, convert, or part out an aircraft. Or you provide the financing to do any of the above.

Was a great conference as always. For those of you who have never attended, I like to think of it as the equivalent of the Paris Air Show. Only on U.S. soil. No planes underfoot or above you, but just as many deals being transacted in the rooms around the main event.

We talk about our main takeaway from the conference this week, as well as a whole lot of other things including the record breaking loss Virgin Atlantic seems poised to report for its fiscal year ending Feb. 28th.

We also talk about the TSA’s plan to allow certain knives, along with other odd things, onboard aircraft. Both Delta CEO Richard Anderson and US Airways CEO Doug Parker have come out against the proposed changes, as have most airline employee union groups. American also sent a letter this week in which it voices its displeasure with the proposed changes.

I say “most” union groups because there is on big exception — the Air Line Pilots Association says they support the changes.

The FAA gave Boeing the okay to begin “retrofitting” its 787s this week with new batteries, a new compartment to put them in, and a special vent to make sure any fumes or smoke can be removed from the inside of the cockpit.

PBB readers know where I am on this: I still say the cause of the problem has not been found, and that this is not the end of the electrical issues on the aircraft.

It’s been a great two weeks for airline stocks — and I’ll tell you why bankrupt shares of AMR have moved up sharply the last two weeks.

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