Hello everyone.

I am in Chicago tonight — I will be presenting the luncheon speech tomorrow at The Beat Live Conference being held here at the oh-so-trendy W Hotel in the City Center.

For those of who who are involved in the day-to-day machinations of corporate travel, you owe it to yourself to subscribe to The Beat. Jay Campbell, the founder, editor, and head animal trainer and I have been friends for a long time. Very long time. He’s just as irreverent and unable to regurgitate a press release as I am.

But seriously, this is the only conference that I know of where people really do sit and challenge one another. Ask juicy questions. And confront people.

Just my kind of place.

But before all that stuff starts tomorrow — it’s time to post this week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.

This week we’re talking about airline fee hysteria.

No, I don’t think people are mad as hell. Annoyed — yes. But not mad as hell. Unless we’re talking about Spirit Airlines. Then maybe so.

Does there need to be more transparency. Of course.

But this whole screaming match with these three so-called “consumer groups” is just a little too much guys. We’ll talk more about all this. As always — follow the money.

Airline stocks had a good week — while the price of oil continues to drop. That is good news for the airlines, although the price of jet fuel has stayed stubbornly high over the last several weeks. It has not experienced the same drop in price as has the price of oil.

Did you see the new SkyRider straddle seats that were unveiled last week at an aircraft interiors trade show? Lovely. Not.

The United/Continental deal got its expected shareholder approval last week. Monday the two airlines announced that as of Oct. 1, shares will once again be traded under the ticker UAL — on the New York Stock Exchange.

Just a sampling of what we’re conversing about this week — as usual there is much more.

Subscribers can access this week’s issue here.