trent890

Earlier today, US Airways Group reported a 4th Quarter 2008 net loss of $541 million dollars, including special charges. In the SEC Form 8-K filed for this period, a table of the "Express Fleet Update" for 2009 is shown as part of Exhibit 99.1, the paragraphs pertaining to the Investor Relations Update.

In the Express Fleet Update table, US Airways indicates that the Express fleet actually consisted of 61 DH8's at the year end of 2008. However, the same table shows that by the end of fiscal year 2009, the Express DH8 fleet is estimated to decrease to 55 aircraft.

A visitor to the Piedmont Airlines web home page would see: "We currently operate 55 deHavilland DHC-8 turbo prop aircraft." Yet US Airways Group states in the Form 8-K that there will only be 55 DH8 aircraft remaining in the Express fleet by the end of 2009.

So is the Mesa DH8 operation for US Airways in PHX going to shutdown by the end of 2009, and leave Piedmont with the 55 DH8 aircraft? Or is Piedmont going to lose aircraft this year, while Mesa continues to operate a handful of DH8's in PHX? You can't get from 61 to 55 DH8's in a year without one of those two scenarios occurring.