The pre-tax income gap is mostly noise. UAL's $870M GAAP pre-tax includes $444M in sale-leaseback gains on aircraft transactions — essentially UAL sold planes and leased them back, booking a one-time accounting gain that flows straight through to pre-tax income. Strip that out and UAL's adjusted pre-tax is $498M vs Delta's $532M. Delta actually wins on an adjusted basis, which is the only number that reflects actual airline operations.

Everyone relax. There’s zero chance United jumps us overnight - especially in a fuel crunch. That being said, no doubt they are knocking on the door and who knows what Delta plans to do about it.

But I’m not so sure United is the juggernaut you all think they are. They do A LOT of smoke and mirrors advertising (fleet orders, Evtols, Kirby himself, etc) and A LOT of low margin flying, hence the quick pull down in flying they had after this conflict started. They’re also in a margin war with AA at ORD. I wholeheartedly agree that our management team moves slowly. But I’ve also learned that margin discipline looks very slow (read not flying from EWR to Nuuk).

Anyway, I want my PB days and normal reserve back!