I know. I know. I was AWOL Tuesday. I had a good excuse. I was recovering from writing 74 pages of copy in three days. I also was lucky enough to share my breakfast and his lunch with Terry Maxon, airline reporter for the Dallas Morning News. He and I commiserated about the sad state of the media business, airline union/management relations, the airline business in general, and well, just the sad state of the world in general. Heh.

Not really. It’s always good to sit down and talk with Terry. He makes me laugh. After my marathon writing session this weekend (which was interrupted only by the Super Bowl), I needed a good laugh.

Terry and I agreed that this quarter’s earnings calls for the airline industry, as a group, were one of the most mind-numbing that we could remember. Last week analyst Gary Chase with Barclays said it had been a “tiring” earnings season.

That was being kind.

Thank god for Allegiant’s earnings call. That’s all I can say.

As for the rest of the pack, it was a quarter to forget. For the most part. Enough tap dancing about how bad demand is, but you don’t want to admit. Enough talk about hedging. Enough talk about liquidity. Enough talk about how well you would have done, if it hadn’t been for ______________. (Fill in the blank.)

Or as Terry so eloquently put it in his Idle Thoughts for Friday last week, “After listening to all the airline earnings reports, I’ve decided that I’m rich, excluding special charges and one-time items.”

Back to business in our next post.