This week’s edition of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted. This week we take a close look at the recent 4Q14 earnings posted by Virgin America. It was the first earnings call for the company, which rolled out an IPO in November. While the IPO certainly helped to clean a lot of ugly stuff from the airline’s balance sheet, the airline has its work cut out for it as it goes head to head with Southwest out of Love Field, and it faces more pressure on its transcon routes.

We’ll give you the take from three analysts on the results — and then we throw in our $0.02 for good measure.

We also talk a lot this week about our recent visit with management at United Airlines. While our sessions were off the record in regard to a lot of topics, I think subscribers will still find enough interesting material to get a good feel for what the visit was like.

Oh, and yes, I finally got my official PGA  plaid socks! I’ll be modeling them in the next issue of PBB. 

Last week we sat in on the American Airlines Leadership Conference. Again — this event was also off the record, but we can talk about a few things….including some things that I was most happy to hear.

We have an update this week on the Open Skies report. It now appears that the report  the three major U.S. airlines have been working on for the last two years will finally be allowed to go public next week. I can’t wait.

As for airline stocks, last week was a pretty good week for the sector, with shares of Delta Air Lines leading the sector. Meanwhile, shares of Bombardier dropped again — as more talk of a potential bankruptcy of the transportation company hit the media. Then again, it sounds like the Canadian government would be more than happy to help with financial assistance.

What a mess.

Southwest Airlines got hit again by the FAA on Tuesday for failure to perform required checks on it aircraft. The airline and the FAA still have not come to terms on the last proposed fine — for again essentially not doing what it was supposed to do. I fully expect that we’ll see a fine levied for this latest breach by the FAA as well.

Over the last ten years, no U.S. airline has been fined more by the FAA than Southwest. 

I would strongly suggest that perhaps something needs to change over on Denton Drive.

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

Hello everyone! This week’s edition of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted!

This week we do our  in-depth review of 4Q earnings from Spirit, Skywest, and Air Canada. We also have the PlaneBusiness Earnings Summary for Virgin America, which reported earnings Wednesday. We’ll talk more about those results  next week.

In other news, did you catch the sharp drop in Bombardier’s shares last week? The company reported 4Q14 earnings, along with a whole lot of other news, including a departure of a CEO, an admission that it needs more cash; and more. Shares of the Canadian transportation company took a serious hit as a result — and rightfully so.

But the most talked about news of the week was the interview of Delta Air Lines‘ CEO Richard Anderson by CNN’s Richard Quest.

The subject — a more than two year research effort by the U.S major carriers that attempts to document the illegal subsidies that the three Middle Eastern carriers have benefited from.

Unfortunately Richard decided to take the Fox News approach — and link the Middle Eastern carriers to those who carried out the attacks of 9/11.

Wrong message. Completely.

We’ve see the documentation that the airlines have presented to the DOT, and we talk this week about our opinion on all of this.

Meanwhile, on the stock side, shares of Expedia flew off the charts last week, pushed by news of its deal to buy Orbitz. We give you our take on this news as well.

As usual, all this and more in this next-to-last earnings issue for the quarter of PlaneBusiness Banter.