Astro9007

Jet Blue: Value Buy and Oil Hedge

Um.... the airlines were not BAILED OUT in 2001. Can you please get your FACTS straight?

In 2001, the government offered LOANS to the airlines in order to help them out. Recall that UAL requested loan assistance and were DENIED. I believe all the airlines that took the loans repaid them.

Bailout? Hardly. Bailout: think Financial Industry. Now THAT'S a bailout!


On Jun 02 03:37 PM H.J. Huneycutt wrote:

> User,
>
> Nice little rant, but I'm not completely sure how you are disagreeing
> with me. In your rant, you admit that the French and German governments
> are propping up Airbus. You also imply at the end of your argument
> that the airlines are heavily subsidized by suggesting that ticket
> prices would 'have to rise dramatically' for a 'healthy airline sector.'
>
>
> I'm also not sure how you ignore the fact that the major airlines
> (here in the US) were bailed out in 2001 and may need to be bailed
> out again. And the bailouts would probably have been more frequent
> if not for the regulation era pre-1978.
>
> The US government still subsidizes air fares in certain markets,
> as well:
> query.nytimes.com/gst/...
>
>
> All in all, there has been a consistent pattern of government intervention
> in favor of the airlines and air travel throughout the past half-century.
> I would not complain one bit if the industry were required to survive
> fully on its own --- that would mean a significant increase in fare
> prices and a much greater interest in high-speed rail, which would
> be beneficial to Americans in the long-run.

Jet Blue: Value Buy and Oil Hedge

So, JBLU is a major airline? What planet do you live on? A "Major airline has something that any "major" player in an industry would have: lots and lots of Market Share. As a whole, JBLU has very little, hence they are not a "major" airline.

Now, let's talk about DEBT. Real, gut-bustin' debt. According to their 2008 Annual Report, they have Debt, Obligations, and Liabilities in excess of $4B. Consider the size of that debt as compared to, say, Delta (pre-merger) and obviously MUCH larger airline: their debt was on the order of 7.5B. Not quite twice as much debt for an airline that is at least an order of magnitude larger than JBLU.

I guess the author is just trying to paint a pretty picture.

I live on planet Earth, where the reality of the situation is more stark.

Will Delta Agree to Northwest's Offer Without Pilot Consent?

Hey Snowtown - I doubt you were involved in the negotiations either, so YOU also don't know what happened. Suffice to say that no agreement in seniority integration could be reached, hence no merger. DAL management has already said they would not go through with an agreement that did not protect the seniority of it's employees. There will be no merger unless that condition is met.