You quoted a guy on my "ignore" list. 80/Purple's posts don't reach me, as I'm choosing not to respond to people who can't put substance into a discussion. If they want to play with that level of immaturity they can join the Fielding Follies in Hangar Talk. Not worth my time.

Management is in a tough spot with their short term mentality owners/potential investors. They didn't hit the consensus earnings per share (missed by a penny) and their costs are growing while some of their major competitors have declining costs (see LCC). They won't see the real positives from the business plan until 2014, so they're trying to paint a picture these quarter to quarter guys with ADD can understand.

I'm sure our management is quite frustrated. They report a Q3 GAAP profit of over $1 billion. UAL reported a GAAP profit of $6 million. Now GAAP isn't real money (it takes into account out of period hedges and special items that may or may not impact real cash), but by almost every measure we're outperforming our large rivals (SWA, UCAL, AMR). Yet we're not getting significat differentiation in stock price performance. We trade at a low multiple, SWA trades at 14.5 earnings. We track with our group about 80%. Management wants (and it would be good for us too) differentiation and the financial flexibility that comes with that.