I think there is still more to the story. Many facts or opinions are based on whatever side you are on. Yes, I am a SWA pilot, and I wish all of the best to the F9 guys. Even the ones that were fired by Morris and SWA and filed unbelievable lawsuits on their behave.

F9 guys - watch yourself. If you think for one second that your job is secure, just ask the Midwest guys. Better have a back-up plan. Even at good-ole SWA trailways, the paint is peeling now. Cover your backside, because no one else will.

Good Luck!!!

As a Frontier pilot I take exception to the above paragraph.

The FAPA LOA with RAH began prior to RAH's acquisition of YX and ended after the actual official YX purchase.

Bedford purchased YX as a backup plan in case he did not prevail in the F9 auction. Bedford had already announced the 170/175 MKE flying months before F9 even had an exit sponsor.

My point is that the YX death spiral had already begun, months if not years before FAPA had any dealing with RAH.

It is impossible to convince the gentlemen at YX that their fate was decided long before skywest showed up, let alone RAH.

It is a very simple math exercise. FAPA was preparing the membership for a CH.11 filing prior to the actual announcement last year, the airline was running low on liquidity and numerous covenants were about to be triggered. One of FAPA's consultants had some fancy graphs that included a historical representation of GDP vs airline profitability. When GDP was above +2.7%, the airline industry as a whole was profitable, when GDP was lower, the industry began to hemorrhage cash.

If you take a look at YX's cost/revenue structure, you will see immediately that it would require a level of positive economic activity never before achieved in this country for that airline to break even.

How could YX continue to be a viable operation, regardless of the existence of RAH?

Why did Boeing take the 717's back? No one talks about this very much, but TH played this card back in 2001 when he refused to make a lease payment on any of the midwest and skyway fleet. He basically said, renegotiate my leases or take the planes back. At that time YX had a bastard fleet of dc9's, md80's, d328's and 1900s. There were no other takers, and the lessors were forced to renegotiate. Timmy tried that tactic again, and it blew up in his face. Boeing obtained market rates for the 717's from another airline, end of story.

I hopped on a YX tangent there because it is a soft spot. FAPA had nothing to do with the demise of YX. We also have had nothing to do with the choice of MKE as a new focus city, but that doesn't make it any easier to go in there and fly when hundreds of professionals are losing their jobs.

WRONG.... It is impossible to convince of us what you are saying because you don't know what you are talking about. Midwest had more cash on hand comparatively than any airline in the country as late as June of 2008. We only had 36 airplanes yet we had 185 million in cash. That is until our friends and co-owners NWA came in and took their share to fund their merger with Delta. After Delta and TPG looted it, there was nothing left except for BB and his sleazy outfit to come in and take it over for his benefit. We lost the 717's due to Timmy low balling Boeing and Boeing walking away. This airline made money for 25 years. It always made money. The way the money was handled is a different story. If we were a losing proposition like you say, MKE would not be such a coveted hub now and we would not have lasted 25 years which is more than I can say for F9.

If as you say Midwest product was in a DEATH SPIRAL, would Airtran continue to try to buy Midwest. Would they offer almost 1/2 billion dollars for a company in a DEATH SPIRAL. Would a company that invests in multi- billion dollar investments like TPG, want to buy a company that was in a DEATH SPIRAL. This has been a very bad deal for the Midwest folks, but it has not been because Midwest was going to shut the doors. It was because a deal already has been made.

I am not kicking you while you are down, I may find myself in the same exact position, you never know what is going to happen in this industry.

With that being said, I have a fairly strong grasp of the data.

For example, if you look at the last several 10k's filed by MAG you will find that your company has been utilizing a common tactic that is used by struggling airlines. Frontier, in fact, was doing the same thing until they fired the CFO and began to operate smart under Menke.

In 2002, Midwest had approximately $80 million in unrestricted cash.

Between 2002 and 2007 midwest had an operating LOSS of around $200 Million

Between 2002 and 2007 Midwest had an net LOSS of around $130 Million.

These are not my numbers, they are straight from the SEC documents.

Even though Midwest was losing 100's of Millions of dollars during this time, their unrestricted cash was increasing.

How did they manage that?

Here is one example...

"Other income (expense), net for 2003 includes $11.4 million associated with the federal reimbursement of security costs. Other
income (expense), net for 2002 includes $39.5 million associated with the Fairchild arbitration settlement over the cancellation of
the 428JET program."

and another...

"All owned, otherwise unencumbered aircraft have been pledged as security to holders of the Company’s convertible senior secured
notes "

Each quarter, for five consecutive years, Midwest was bleeding cash. In an effort to prevent liquidity covenants from triggering a BK filing, they encumbered every asset on the balance sheet. Aircraft, engines, spare parts, real estate. You name it, and it was borrowed against.

Over $100 Million of the $180+ in unrestricted cash that you referred to was actually just borrowed $$ from equity that the company needed to tap into to stay alive.

Damn
 

Damn, Zoo.

I hope i voted for you. And if i didnt, i hope i get the chance to in the future.

Zooropa, that is a very interesting analysis. That is exactly what Lakefeld did with US Airways prior to America West coming in to make the aquisition. He had sold and pledged everything to buy enough time to get the deal done with Parker and AWA. In fact, the formation of LCC was rushed to get done to get the buyout done because AAA was days away from liquidation. THe money from Wall Street was only coming in under the LCC- AWA Holdings management. The money Lakefield raised by asset sales was just enough to beat the liquidation deadline.

You can only borrow so much and sell off so much until there is nothing left but CH 7. At least in a buyout there are jobs saved, maybe now right now, but in the future.

Get over it and get a life mam. We just didn't want to have to fly with you.

And now you don't have to.

Move on.

I'll make this quick 'cuz some of the posts are personal and not based in fact.

RAH was a group of 3 seperately operated airlines. They acquired 2 more in the past few months. Five, with so many different airframes, is costly. Solution is to reallocate assets on profitable routes. Easiest thing to do was kick MidWest to the curb and return the planes to Boeing. Fill the void with Fronteir aircraft until they can put RJs on those routes out of MKE and DEN. My guess is that Frontier will be minimalized on their current routes and that RAH will replace them at RJ rates. FAPA sold their pilots down the river. We'll find out in a year or so.

PS-These CEOs aren't dumb and don't care about pilots, FAs or ground workers. The fault of all of these groups was thinking that they did.