A few other things from President Jeff Smisek at poolside:

1. Asia will definitely a main focus after the 787 arrives in significant numbers, starting around 2010. Basically EWR to a bunch of places they already have in mind.

2. The lobbying of Washington to allow sterile transit has gone absolutely nowhere.

I asked this second question because at the last DO, JS says IAH Terminal E was built with sterile transit facility (and arriving passengers can see the room), and if TSA allows its use, they would start IAH-MAD in a heartbeat. So, I wonder if there was any progress. JS said they told TSA, how about if we had armed guards watching the passengers the whole time from plane to plane? TSA said "No".

Thanks, Washington!

3. I mentioned the DOT 20071Q report that CO has the lowest transcon fare. His first response is to not read much into those figures. Second, he joked that he'll immediately tell his guys to raise fares, as requested by us FTers. Seriously, he said that transcon is highly competitive, and I believe he also said they're "doing okay".