Few issues here TD. If its so great to own your own airplanes, why doesn't every airline out there own their own airplanes? How many does CHQ own? Ever see that little plaque on the cockpit door that says the aircraft is leased from so-and-so? Don't have to look hard to find one. GECAS owns more airplanes than any airline out there. Guess what they do with em? Lease em to airlines because airlines don't want the risk of trying to sell them later.
As far as you losing money, what can I tell you except maybe to cut your losses, cash in and buy some cheese for your whine with your sale. YOU chose a bad time to buy. Sounds like you need a little practice spotting bottoms (and not the kind you see on girls in the terminal
). Personally, I don't touch airline stocks (or most any single stock for that matter) and since you're so fond of bragging about your portfolio, mine is up close to 40%. And I don't own any individual stocks. For the kind of investing I do there really is no reason to. If I were you, I'd let the stock slide a little further till it gets near the liquidated value of the company and then buy a bunch more stock and then ride it back up, whether its from an acquisition or if we just start doing awesome.
FYI, the branded flying was one of those contingency plans that was on the shelf for a while before it was brought into reality. According to folks here in the know, the plan was formulated around the time CAL spun us off. Do you really think management here was not aware of the clause that let CAL pull planes? You think they just sat around sucking their thumbs and said "golly gee, I hope it doesn't happen, lets just not even plan for it". Give me a break
Believe it or not, Skywest also developed a similar plan when Delta and United both were in bankruptcy JUST IN CASE worst came to worse and they were out on their a$$.
To answer your question, XJT is going to put the airplanes where they will make the most money for the company. If its with Delta, CAL, Frontier or doing our own flying then so be it. Its called fiduciary duty. Its not like one day Jim Ream woke up and decided he wanted to go off and do his own thing.