AirTran Airways A+ Rewards - FL reports $78M 2nd qtr profit; touts Milwaukee growth

http://pressroom.airtran.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=201565&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1309854&highlight=

They are publicly claiming that they are pleased with their results in Milwaukee. It will be interesting to hear if there is any further discussion of this on the conference call. I am unable to listen live today. I'll have to check out the archive later.

Good show, FL!

Fornaro predicted earlier this year that AirTran would be the only airline to post a profit for 2009.

I think what he said was that they would be profitable every qtr this year but with oil in the high 60's that will hard to do. I can see why they are ramping up MKE, Operating margins that high you can afford to take some risk.:)

Airtran truely has become Milwaukee's new "hometown airline." Were it not for the "boosterism" displayed by the Milwaukee Journal when Airtran offered to acquire the now-dying Midwest Airlines, hundreds of Midwest employees would now be happily and profitably employed at an expanding Airtran. And the Midwest stockholders would have realized something for their equity instead of being left with almost worthless scrap paper.

Thank you Milwaukee Journal.:td:

Airtran truely has become Milwaukee's new "hometown airline." Were it not for the "boosterism" displayed by the Milwaukee Journal when Airtran offered to acquire the now-dying Midwest Airlines, hundreds of Midwest employees would now be happily and profitably employed at an expanding Airtran. And the Midwest stockholders would have realized something for their equity instead of being left with almost worthless scrap paper.

Thank you Milwaukee Journal.:td:

Kevin Healy has commented today about the Midwest offer and he has stated again, that they are thrilled the deal did not go through. The timing of the deal would have devastated AirTran. Need I say more?

Airtran truely has become Milwaukee's new "hometown airline." Were it not for the "boosterism" displayed by the Milwaukee Journal when Airtran offered to acquire the now-dying Midwest Airlines, hundreds of Midwest employees would now be happily and profitably employed at an expanding Airtran. And the Midwest stockholders would have realized something for their equity instead of being left with almost worthless scrap paper.

Thank you Milwaukee Journal.:td:

Most shareholders made out fairly well when the TPG deal went through. However, TPG and DL obviously did not.

From the conference call Kevin Healy said that they are quite pleased with how Milwaukee is performing for them. They did take some jabs at Midwest again. Saying that Midwest is a shell of their former self and that flying regional aircraft performs very poorly. Southwest coming to Milwaukee was not a surprise for AirTran and they believe Southwest's entry into MKE will accelerate the utilization of MKE by people in the Northern burbs of Chicago.

Very good qtr. Cash is up. Credit card hold back is now zero. According to Keven Healy "MKE is profitable and is vey happy with the results so far". No new airplanes until 2011. If they increase capacity it will be thru utilization. RASM is still down and will continue to be trouble for the industry as a whole. They think that SWA entrance will bring more people to MKE. The fact that both carriers have the lowest cost in the industry that doesn't bold well for Midwest flying RJ's as they call them. We will just have to see how this plays out. Overall the cc was very upbeat. A lot better than it was last year! To early to tell how the WIFI is doing. They are working with GoGo to work out some better pricing models for the customers. Im pretty sure I missed some more. Heres a quote from Fornaro.

On the call: AirTran CEO Bob Fornaro
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

AirTran Airways sees growth potential in the Midwest, and it has been aggressively expanding service in Milwaukee. But the competition could be stiff, since Southwest Airlines has announced new service to Milwaukee and Republic Airways Holdings says it will buy struggling Midwest Airlines. AirTran Chief Executive Bob Fornaro discussed the issues in the company's second-quarter earnings conference call with analysts on Wednesday.

QUESTION: Are you concerned about the competition in Milwaukee, considering the Republic-Midwest deal?

RESPONSE: This is basically a patchwork of regional aircraft I guess masquerading as a once proud brand. Midwest was well liked, but there is really nothing left of the old Midwest. ... They had to pick somebody to compete against. We don't mind competing against a regional carrier."