The APA Hotline just gave us the final numbers on the election:

“For President, Captain Lloyd Hill received 4,573 votes and Captain Ralph Hunter received 2,180 votes. 

For Secretary-Treasurer, First Officer Jim Eaton received 2,723 votes and Captain Bill Haug received 3,986 votes.”

Not as close as I had thought would be the case.

Just a side note. The new officers don’t have much time to slack-off. They take office effective July 1.

Oh boy — this should be interesting.

Here you go. Here are the final results for the APA elections. All three candidates on the Unity2007 ticket that included current President Ralph Hunter were defeated.

President – Lloyd Hill

VP – Tom Westbrook

Sect/Treasurer – Bill Haug

Ticker: (NYSE:AMR)

From an American Airlines’ pilot reader we hear that with DFW and ORD votes still out —  challenger Lloyd Hill is about 1900 votes ahead of current APA President Ralph Hunter.

If this count is correct it would mean that Ralph would have to carry both domiciles with about a 90% vote.

Don’t think this is going to happen.

We’ll keep you posted.

United Airlines’ flights  were grounded across the country for hours this morning because of a computer failure.

Reports say that the computer system, based in Chicago, which calculates weight and balance for departing flights shut down. At one point this morning there were only five United flights in the air, according to several media reports.

United now reports that the system is back up and flights are back up in the air, but “delays are expected to continue throughout the day.”

Ahhh, I’d say that might be a little optimistic considering that the entire United fleet was essentially grounded for more than two hours this morning. If I were you, I’d just cancel that flight and tell your business partners you’ll  see them when United can reschedule you.

Ticker: (Nasdaq:UAUA)

For those of you who are PBB subscribers, you will recall that when Frontier Airlines announced their “shuttle” service between LAX and San Francisco last year, we were not big fans of the idea. Too much competition, not enough market “heft” for Frontier to pull it off.

Today, the airline sent a note to employees telling them that the LAX/SFO shuttle service will be discontinued on July 10.

Just one year and about 10 days after they started it.

Frontier Airlines is, reluctantly, on our PBB Titanic Watch. We put airlines on the list that we feel are in either strategic or financial difficulty.

Ticker: (FRNT:Nasdaq)

Not sure if this one has legs or not, but a couple of folks have written to us tonight to let us know that word on the street is that Ron Reber, President and COO of SkyWest is headed over to Virgin America to replace Fred Reid.

Anyone have any more information?

Ticker: (Nasdaq: SKYW)

Well, maybe. I’ll believe all of this when I actually see it happen. But it does seem we passed a major milestone in the bigger fight today.

The European Union today entered a deal with the United States that will boost competition and the number of passengers flying across the Atlantic, but said the accord was only a first step to prise open the US air travel market.

Under the so-called “open skies” agreement – the first of its kind – EU air carriers will be allowed to fly from any airport in the 27- member EU bloc to any airport in the US and vice versa.

The accord will replace bilateral pacts between the US and EU countries, ruled as illegal by the EU’s highest court.

German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, hailed the unanimous agreement as a “breakthrough” for trans-Atlantic aviation ties.

However, he acknowledged that the deal was only second-best for the EU, as it did not fully open the trans-Atlantic air travel market.

EU ministers said they were poised to immediately start negotations on a second deal with the US in a bid to gain more access to the closed US market.

For the rest of the story, please click here.

However, at Britain’s request, EU ministers agreed to delay plans to implement the deal from October this year to March 2008.

The UK had raised concerns that open skies reform did not go far enough on US airline ownership rights.

As most of you are aware, the US has insisted on limiting any foreign company from owning more than 25% of a US airline’s voting rights.

This is a huge deal folks. Especially for the cargo carriers. I’m sure the champagne is apoppin’ at FedEx, even if their numbers yesterday left a little to be desired.

One thing is for sure. It should certainly make for a very entertaining 12 months as the details of how this “big picture” change will be implemented in practice.

Kicking off that line of thinking this morning was Continental, which immediately filed with the U.S. Department of Transportation for rights to serve new routes to Europe, including a Houston-Heathrow route and a Cleveland-Paris route.

Bada Boom, Bada Bing. Let the fun begin!

Goodness knows I have not always been a fan of Gerald Grinstein at Delta Air Lines. I’ve questioned a number of his decisions over the last couple of years, and I have wondered why he didn’t do more at the airline when he was on the board of directors to change the direction in which the airline was headed.

But it’s hard to find fault with the airline’s proposed management compensation plan that was filed in bankruptcy court today.

Unlike the top-exec bloated compensation plan that management at United Airlines put forth, and largely saw remain intact after the airline came out of bankruptcy protection, Delta Air Lines is not going down that path.

Unlike United’s Glenn Tilton, who could walk away with as much as $60 million from the United bankruptcy, Delta’s Grinstein apparently will walk away with no additional stock options whatsoever.

In addition, the airline will pay all of its non-union employees about $480 million in stock and cash when it emerges from Chapter 11, plus a July 1 pay raise and future profit sharing awards. Pilots have a separate deal with similar elements.

Delta says the immediate stock and cash payout will be worth close to $13,000 for a typical worker if they sell the stock immediately.

More in this week’s PBB after we’ve read the rundown of the executive payouts. But again, kudos to Gerald Grinstein.

Tickers: (OTC: DALRQ), (UAUA:Nasdaq)

For Hire: Ex Airline CEO and President. Completely flexible. Can dress up or dress down — depending upon the company culture and opportunity. Please call Fred Reid.

Virgin America has been given the okay to fly by the DOT.

But, as anticipated, not without restrictions.

Those restrictions include:

“**Requiring that the disinterested directors on the Virgin America board (that is, U.S. citizens) separately approve of the appointment or replacement of the trustee of Virgin Group’s shareholdings.

**Amending the voting trust agreement to require that the Trustee vote its shares proportionally to the other shareholders as to any matter that, in the opinion of the U.S. investor directors, creates a conflict of interest between the interests of Virgin Group and that of U.S. shareholders.

**Modifying the Virgin Trademark License Agreement to remove certain geographic and operational restrictions on Virgin America and the requirement that it pay royalties to the Virgin Group should the applicant conduct operations independent of the Virgin name.

**Confirming that the current CEO has terminated employment with the applicant within 90 days of the certificate being issued and any follow-on consultancy within 180 days following termination of employment.

**Submitting copies of all executed and signed agreements prior to certification.

**Reporting to the Department in advance if any additional loans (or other debt funding) are to be provided to it from the Virgin Group.”

Whew. I’m kind of surprised that the DOT took the airline up on its “sacrificial offering” to fire Reid. I’m also not sure if Richard Branson is going to be too happy about the restrictions to be placed on the Virgin Trademark License Agreement.

Then again, I guess if I were Virgin, I’d probably go with the deal and work out any infractions or problems after the fact.

Though the decision is tentative, the DOT’s rulings in such matters have historically not been overturned. The DOT said “interested parties may file an objection to the proposed decision within 21 calendar days.”

It wasn’t immediately clear just how soon Virgin America would begin flying after the obligatory 21-day period has passed.