Monthly Archives: April 2007

Yes!

From the WSJ Evening Wrap:

FCC Rules Out Cellphones on Planes

The Federal Communications Commission won’t allow passengers to use cellphones while in flight, saying in an order that was released today that there was “insufficient technical information” available on whether airborne cellphone calls would jam networks on the ground.

Existing rules require cellular phones to be turned off once an aircraft leaves the ground in order to avoid interfering with cellular network systems on the ground. The FCC began examining the issue in December 2004.

AirTran Coughs Up the Dough

As we have said from the beginning, if AirTran was going to have a shot at getting Midwest Airlines — they would have to up their offer.

Monday, they did.

AirTran Holdings Inc. announced it had increased its hostile offer to purchase all of the outstanding shares of Midwest Air Group Inc. to $15 per share. The offer consists of $9 in cash and 0.5842 of a share of AirTran common stock for each Midwest share. The total equity value of the exchange offer is estimated at $389 million.

Interesting timing in that the move by AirTran seems clearly to coincide with Midwest’s record date for voting proxies, which closed with the close of trading today.

It’s clearly a duel of the institutional investors versus the retail investors here.

But, as we have said before, we believe this ad-venture is ill-advised for the folks at AirTran. Both from a macro (economic cycle) and micro (their own current financial performance) viewpoint.

Back at the Worldwide Headquarters

After a day of travel Monday and a reconnaissance mission this morning with both PlaneDad and PlaneMom, we’re back at our post.

And none too soon.

First things first.

Last week we told you that one astute and observant reader had correctly identified the location of the three smiling AMR ramp rats in our last Foto Friday post.

The location? Norfolk.

Thanks to Charles Duncan, who works for Continental Airlines.

Charles wrote,

“Hard to say for sure…but the logo on their airport badges looks a bit like the one at ORF. Maddog operations to ORF-ORD, I believe.”

He believed right.

When told that he was the lucky winner, Charles wrote,

“I am surprised I got it right. My parents live near ORF, so I use the airport from time to time. Though it’s a long trip from Tokyo, where I am based. There really was not much to go by from that photo. Most airports from the ramp in small, sleepy airports of that size all look about the same.”

No, there wasn’t a lot to go on. Great sleuthing.

Thanks also to James Nichols, American Airlines, who sent us the nice shot.

First Quarter Airline Stock Performance

Ah, a broadband connection.

I’ve been out and about this weekend — down in Tucson actually. However, thanks to a nice broadband connection I have here this morning, I can give you a head’s up for the final first quarter stock performance numbers for the airline sector.

Just click here and you can see how badly, or how well, your favorite airline stock did for the first quarter.