From Plane Business Banter:

But first, let's start with a story that hit my computer and phone in a huge way on Friday afternoon. And has continued through the weekend.

I am going to do this because I think it's important to get the story out there that no, the news that three executives at United Airlines had been termimated was not "hidden" in an 8-K that was filed on Friday. Although, I have to admit, the wording of the filing was so ambiguous and confusing that even I thought that perhaps this was the case.

United filed an 8-K Friday in which it announced that the current employment contracts with EVP and Vice Chair Jim Compton, CFO John Rainey, and EVP Jeff Foland would be terminated in September.

Granted, the fact that the termination of these contracts was taking place in September should have been the tipoff. I mean, if you are going to get rid of someone, you usually announce it either on the day of the dismissal, or perhaps a day later. And then, they are simply gone. It's not like you give them months of advance notice.

But the problem with this filing was three-fold. One, it hit the internet-verse on a Friday afternoon. Two, the decibel level of chatter about just who might be leaving or staying at United Airlines has, for the last several weeks, and particularly after the recent article in the Wall Street Journal, been the number one topic discussed whenever one sits down with anyone else in the industry.

Am I wrong? No, I'm not.

Finally, the wording of the filing itself was very confusing. So much so that our resident legal eagle was not sure whether they had been terminated or not. So much so that one senior legal eagle at another airline simply commented, "Those attorneys who wrote that filing should be fired."

Roll all of this together, and Friday afternoon, I began to get notes and phone calls from United employees, other airline industry observers, and a host of other interested parties, including some media outlets, concerning the news that United had fired Jim Compton, John Rainey, and Jeff Foland.

So here's the deal. No, the three were not terminated.

United is changing the current compensation plan/contract agreement the three men have with the company so that their agreements are in synch with those of other execs at the airline. That's it. That's all. That is what I was told Friday by the airline.

But having said that, the problem here is that 1) the wording of the filing was very confusing and 2) given the current state of public speculation about what personnel changes might be in the offing, this had the effect of lighting a damn inferno under people.

But like I said, there is apparently nothing here. We can all go back to looking at pictures of cats on Facebook, and reading tweets about lost golf clubs and non-existent giraffes in Ghana.

*FACE PALM*
At least every strain of this company is consistent in being MASSIVELY screwed up.