Hello everyone. A nice Happy Halloween to you all!

This week’s issue of PlaneBusiness Banter is now ready for perusal by all card-carrying subscribers.

This week’s issue is a beast — a mega-earnings issue in which we take an in-depth look at the 3Q13 results issued last week by Delta Air Lines, US Airways, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines. We also have PlaneBusiness Earnings Summaries posted for Allegiant, Spirit, JetBlue, Hawaiian and Alaska Air Group. 

The long and the short? Delta Air Lines rocked the house, US Airways did extremely well, Southwest Airlines came in a bit better than expected, but United Airlines disappointed.

We also have the latest DOT Air Consumer Travel Report numbers this week.  Again — Delta Air Lines more or less dominated the results for the big four.

Of special note this evening, following up on court documents Monday in which American Airlines and US Airways and the Department of Justice disclosed that they had agreed on a mediator, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that US Airways and American are preparing a settlement package to present to the DOJ.

This is pretty much what we thought would happen. In fact, the Judge in the trial had told both sides to seek mediation.

But as I write in PBB this week, it’s all about those depositions. Once those start to be taken and both sides get access to the information contained in them, then the strength or the weakness of a particular case begins to take shape. According to the court on Monday, 19 depositions had already been taken from execs at both airlines. Another nine depositions have been taken from “other airline executives.”

I still think we will see a negotiated settlement of this case.

On that note, it’s time for us to sign off. It’s been a long day — very long issue this week.

Have fun later today. But don’t eat too much of the candy corn. That stuff is evil.