Hello all!

Whew. It’s late! Or maybe it’s just very early.

Whatever way you’d like to look at it, this week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

Last week we thought we would have had fourth quarter earnings from Pinnacle Airlines to discuss this week, but the airline notified us last week that the information in Thomson concerning its reporting date was not correct — even though it had been recently updated. In fact, the regional airline that is desperately attempting to stay out of bankruptcy says it does not know when it will report fourth quarter numbers.

In addition, Pinnacle said in an SEC filing Wednesday that it has canceled its shareholder meeting, which had been scheduled for May. The airline did not set another date.

Meanwhile, Republic Holdings released their fourth quarter numbers late Wednesday, and the airline is scheduled to hold its earnings call later today (Thursday.)

So we will have our usual in-depth look at that call and those numbers in next week’s issue.

This week we talk a lot about AMR — as the company was in bankruptcy court Wednesday. Did the bankruptcy judge allow the company to hire its laundry list of advisors, consultants, and attorneys? We’ll talk about that decision by the judge, along with the fact that the airline is apparently going to use yet another consultant, not Boston Consulting Group, to come up with strategic plans for American Eagle.

That means the airline will have one consulting firm working on the mainline operation and another working with Eagle.

Uh-huh.

The other consulting group? Bain.

Meanwhile, this week the pilots union at American sued the airline, claiming that its negotiations with the airline should be conducted not under Section 1113, but under the auspices of the Railway Labor Act.

Meanwhile, on Wall Street, the stocks we track at PlaneBusiness posted the worst week of the year last week , as traders got more nervous the higher jet fuel prices climbed.

United Airlines attempted a fare increase last week — but by Tuesday of this week it was clear band the rest of the discounters were not going to bite.

IAG, parent of British Airways and Iberia, reported earnings this week. How did the airline holding company do? We’ll tell you.

And finally, yep, we’ll tell you the details from our adventure with Oscar on Sunday. Yes, that Oscar. Red carpet and all. That’s the reason we are a little later than usual this week. But you know what — it was worth it!

All this and much more — in this week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter .