Just came across this article in the Houston Chronicle....

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6326245.html

If this is in the wrong place, Mods please move where it's suppose to be....

Doesn't sound too good for Houston's economy or CO employees...

I really hope that is not the case as I have a lot of friends at CO and mostly fly CO, but I guess this is just the sign of the times.

Reading that confirms what I already knew but didnt want to believe and it scares the HELL out of me.. But I trust that all of us will get through this..

Kellner gives a very realistic outlook on the airline industry.

That was a very well-done piece. It's obvious that either the Chron likes their relationship with CO or that good journalism still does exist in a few isolated pockets of this country.

I thought the article was very good as well. I also felt that the level of openness that Larry and the rest of the CO team members share with us at the DOs was at the same level that he discussed the issues with the reporter. There is also an article that discusses the *A and the Tokyo hub. For those taking the NRT trip after OCt. 31 it sounds like your in for a treat potential.

ConciergeMike's comments are right on the money.

The Chronicle does a great job -- way better and much less biased than the Dallas Morning News. However, they are probably on their toes with all of the other papers going bust these days.

The second photo has LK speaking in front of a CO bird in the daylight...wonder where and when that was taken?

Thanks. Given the choice of the two bold points, the cynic in me is betting on the former, but I'm still holding out hope for the latter.

Nope, it's the former. The Chron editorial staff is somewhat permanently out to lunch. Check out BlogHouston for a regular running of silliness at Houston's local daily. Steve Olafson, the first journalist to be fired for writing a blog while he was on the Chron staff, also writes some about the paper and other things in the town I grew up in here.

Further proof that Larry and CO really do get it.

That said, if all the internet booking engines had been forced to adjust their pricing quotes to reflect the likelihood of additional fees, it might have been a more level playing field, and CO may have in fact gained market share from not having the fees....

to some of those online article comments.

The side bar LK quotes make it clear that CO's relationship with UA will be much tighter than its current relationship with both NW and Delta.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...l/6326257.html

I think that's the first time we see an actual measurement of time being mentioned.

While the article is fine, I'm not sure it is much more than old news. Weak demand has been apparent since at least Q4. Yeah, it talks about the hometown airline, but beyond that? Is there really anything new here?

And I don't think it paints LK in that good of a light. A few things stick out to me. Among them was this paragraph:

Now, I'm not saying that LK performed that much worse than anyone else, but even he acknowledged that their labor costs are at the "high end of the industry" and it is clear that they were kind of caught flat-footed with regards to the severity of this downturn. Personally, I feel that they should have seen this coming, particularly the decrease in premium fares, as the revenue premiums they were demanding are out of whack with what the product is really worth.

I'm also not a fan of the re-regulation talk. If LK doesn't feel that he can compete, then he should quit. Regulation is for lazy and incompetent managers. What he should be saying isn't that the industry isn't stable but rather that the legacy airlines aren't stable. That WN exists is testament to both the positive impacts of deregulation for consumers and the fact that profits are possible in the US airline industry if you keep things simple and manage your business well.

Things are genuinely awful for the airlines right now. My concern is that none of the players are yet willing to admit that the effects will far outlast this particular downturn. And they seem utterly naive about what a weak foundation their business is built on.

But that measurement of time truthfully doesn't mean a lot. "Within hours" after the last Team-affiliated flight could simply mean that some of the planes will have dry glue on the Star decal. I don't expect firm details to come out until after SkyTeam participation is finished...there's too many contractual and antitrust issues.