Good evening everyone. This week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now posted.

This week we are talking about a lot of things. First, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane okayed the AMR Disclosure Statement and Plan of Reorganization this week. No surprise here. The next step? The vote of the unsecured creditors on the Statement and the Plan. Trust me, they are going to vote yes.

After that, everyone is expected back in court on Aug. 15 when, hopefully, most of the legal mumbo-jumbo involving the bankruptcy will be hashed out and from that point — it won’t be that much longer before the process is wrapped up.

The one big outstanding piece of business? The Department of Justice review of the merger.  Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that the DOJ does not make this a difficult process. I think all parties want this thing to be signed off on as soon as possible.

In other news, we talk about the IATA AGM that took place this week in Cape Town, we are happy that the TSA came to its senses and decided not to allow knives onboard aircraft again, and we talk about why we still feel the new American Airlines management team will look, and should look, very much like the one we recently saw on stage at the US Airways Leadership Conference.

All this and a whole lot more in this week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter.