Basically, what all those figures mean is that unless things get better, all airlines other than Southwest are just plain [expletive deleted].

And that would mean the country is screwed, too. I'm sorry, folks, but Southwest isn't going to hack it for all the travel that we need to do in this country. For starters, a lot of large population centers are not on the list of cities they serve.

I see a lot of layoffs coming, and I see a lot of consolidation coming. I also see a lot of unions being told, fine, we can continue to pay your pilots $300K a year, but there will be a hell of a lot less of them employed.