Originally Posted by
sbm12
You wrote "the U.S. carrier with the longest period of profitability since 9/11 and the shortest period of losses since 9/11." I'm curious how you define that. And I'm pretty sure there's a group of folks down at DAL that might challenge the notion.
WN and CO posted profits. DL's loss decreased, though that's still not great. UA, US, F9 and AA all posted losses. I stopped looking at this point, but there are some carriers that aren't losing money out there. I'm glad that B6 is profitable for the year, but claiming that they have the longest period of profitability doesn't really work unless you can define that.
Even adjusting for the difference in size of the carrier, B6 has cumulatively lost less money than any of the legacies since 9/11, including AA, CO, DL, UA, US, NW.
What I meant by "longest period of profitability is that B6 had a profit in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004, a period during which all the legacies each lost billions of dollars. And no, B6 has not been more profitable than WN in the period since 9/11.
The big difference is the lack of cash on hand; that's clearly a huge issue because no business can survive without cash.
Still, the situation needs to be put in perspective.