Some Quick Hits

I am back online again today. Couldn't blog much last week due to various issues, including family illness and work-related items.

Lots of airline news while I was away. Here is a quick rundown:

• Delta, United, US Airways, and American all lost megabucks in Q2. JetBlue also hit a rough patch. But the financial news for the airlines isn't universally terrible -- Continental almost broke even, and Southwest is expected to announce a small profit on Thursday. Northwest announces Q2 results tomorrow, and if my math is correct, analysts think the loss will be somewhere around the $100 million-$200 million range, excluding one-time items.
• Midwest Airlines is privately-held by TPG Capital, which means its finances are not publicly disclosed. However, it announced major cuts last week, including 40% of its workforce and termination of service in many markets. The head of Midwest's pilots' union thinks the carrier may be headed for a Chapter 11 filing soon.
  
• Regional carrier Pinnacle Airlines extended its deal with Delta to fly as Delta Connection. Pinnacle also operates as Northwest Airlink, so this deal makes a great deal of sense once the Delta-NWA merger goes through. Related to this, Delta is ending its regional carrier contract with Mesa Airlines as well. Not terribly surprising, as Mesa did not account for a huge percentage of Delta's regional traffic.
• Northwest Airlines is touting new service between LAX and Milwaukee. This is sort of interesting as Milwaukee is not one of NWA's traditional hubs. Then again, NWA runs quite a few direct point-to-point flights out of PDX and SEA as well.
  
• JetBlue also announced new service from PDX to Long Beach, CA using Embraer E-190 jets. This announcement is in contrast to a number of cuts in capacity announced by JetBlue, including pulling out of Ontario, CA altogether. Still, this is some good news for PDX, which is losing Mexicana and some Horizon routes to some smaller Oregon cities.
  

Continental operates one of the most state-of-the-art short-haul fleets, having retired all their MD-80s by 2005. All those fuel-efficient 737NG planes are probably a big factor saving their bacon right now. The airlines which still fly lots of MD-80s, including American, Delta, and Midwest, are really getting pinched on fuel costs right now.