What did we say about Northwest before they came out of their spa stay in bankruptcy?

I believe it went something like this: Look out, because when Northwest comes out of bankruptcy, they are going to be a force to be reckoned with.

Today, we saw just how much of a force the airline has become.

The airline rolled out third quarter numbers today and they were excellent. Makes you wonder how good they would have been had the airline been able to schedule all of its flights in July and August.

For the quarter, the airline posted a profit of $244 million, or $0.93 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier net loss of $1.18 billion, or $13.50 a share. The prior-year included $1.43 billion in reorganization costs.

Revenue dipped 0.9% to $3.38 billion, as Northwest cut seat capacity to trim less profitable routes.

The mean estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial was for earnings of $0.76 cents a share on revenue of $3.36 billion.