Completely made up. After 9/11 oil was $20/bbl but the airlines lost BILLIONS. Not to mention UAL is parking 747's, which going by his/her math makes them profitable. Why would UAL park profitable aircraft?

Because they're not profitable.

It's been said that 50 seaters are "loss leaders" and used by the majors to cherry pick competitors routes. Before the RJ DAL pretty much had a stranglehold on the Southeast, UAL on the West coast, NWA in the midwest, etc. RJ's opened up a lot more markets for the majors, at $0.25/gal Jet-A. However, now they've morphed into less feed and and now carry a sizable percentage of the mainline pax, reference XJT.

What will bring about profits is a cutting of the capacity. Downsizing the number of seats on a given market makes each seat more valuable. Thus you can charge exponentially more for them.

Unless LCC's come in with 737's and take up the slack. Did someone say Southwest/Airtran?!?