thanks guys!



little healthy guy joins his 2 year old big sister who lives to have fun

 

Is there a way to swap with the pot for a trip the next day? I called scheduling and they said they can only do WS manually, but not swap a trip out with open time. Anybody been able to do this?


And CONGRATULATIONS FTB!!! You know that 2 kids is 3 times the work, but 100% worth it.

 

Sleep well brotha. Congratulations!!

Carl

 

Congrats, FTB!!!

 

United Continental's Report Is Deceiving
Tim Beyers - January 27, 2011

Shares of resurgent legacy carrier United Continental Holdings (NYSE: UAL) closed up more than 7% yesterday, the result of enthusiasm for an earnings report that isn't nearly as good as it looks.

And it does look good at first glance. Revenue surged 15% and adjusted earnings swung from a $0.60-per-share loss to a $0.44-per-share gain. United Continental's mainline load factor also improved a tenth of a percent to 82.7%. (Confused? Click here to get the skinny on all sorts of airline operating metrics.)

UAL also confirmed big orders with Airbus and Boeing (NYSE: BA). Despite the aircraft's well-documented problems, United Continental plans to acquire 25 of Boeing's fuel-efficient 787s. The implication? We have more than enough funding to expand and modernize our fleet, thank you very much.

Before you clap

Frankly, everything seems fine with UAL's report until you stack it up against what Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) reported last week. Delta also booked a double-digit revenue gain and reversed prior-year losses in Q4. Yet its peer failed to impress the Street the way UAL has. The difference? Delta missed analyst expectations for profit.

Whether that actually means anything is debatable. Wall Street was embarrassingly low in projecting United Continental's Q4 profit, calling for just $0.23 a share. And that's not even the worst part.

(Clears throat) The aforementioned "worst part" ...

More galling is what the Street is choosing to pay attention to. I'll grant that Delta's results weren't great, but at least the carrier produced free cash flow ($52 million in the quarter, according to management's assertions).

United Continental can't make that claim. Not only did the carrier strip cash flow calculations out of its press release (a troubling change from Q3), but what little information we do have shows UAL's liquid resources dipped from $9.1 billion in the third quarter to $8.7 billion in Q4.

Something's burning at United, and it smells like cash. Should investors care? Use the comments box below to let us know what you think. You can also rate United Continental in Motley Fool CAPS.

 

Nope. Can't swap with the pot if the trip your dropping or the trip you want to swap for is within 48 hours of report time. You can WS a trip but you cannot swap for one.

Need that changed in 2012 also. I don't see why we can't swap for stuff that is outside of 12 hours away from report. Wouldn't mess up the ability to cover the trip. I understand limiting us within 12 hours of report because they would burn up SC guys, but outside of 12 hours it makes no difference as far as coverage goes as long as the coverage levels allow the swap to go through.

 

Congrats FTB!

I can't wait to see that situation appropriate picture

Cheers
George

 

Thanks - that was it - $175 in the 401K.

All this means is a couple more "early bird specials" for me and the little lady in my retirement at Del Boca Vista. Not that eating dinner at 1630 is wrong.

 

Boeing will think they learned from their outsourcing orgy, do it again, have the same result and squeal to the world court when Airbus sells 600 planes to SWA. The 320 NEO only needs engines and winglets added to it, and maybe tiny little things like slightly more aerodynamic beacons and landing lights, etc. Big deal. The legwork for the winglets is pretty much done anyway. That leaves them 5 years to work out engine only. I think they can handle that long before Boeing can get a clean sheet narrowbody off the ground. Long before.

 

Yeah I would also like to see narrow body fleet only numbers with all training other than recurrent and upgrade backed out. That would give a much truer comparison. Yes there is a cost for training with a lot of fleet types, but there is revenue opportunity there as well and it is not a fair comparison. If DL went to a single fleet type it would have to slash it routes and revenue so this bogus MBA 101 regurgitation about how great SWA is because of one fleet type just isn't relevant in context. I bet if you isolated each fleet type (737, 320, M88) you would see significantly higher per pilot productivity.