While I admit this isn’t an easy environment in which to run an airline, I’m not sure when it ever really was after deregulation. But that’s beside the point.

While I still have a wait and see attitude, there’s an increasing Frank Lorenzo quality to Smisek’s decisions that I find troubling. From customers to employees, I’m seeing reminders of those Days of Frank, and that certainly didn’t turn out well for the airline till Bethune arrived.

And the conditions are somewhat similar: merging carriers in a tough economic and competitive environment.

I stuck through those Lorenzo times, but I was younger and more willing to see it through. Older and wiser now.