Sink r8

1) Maybe the F/A meant he/she has the cash? Or the pilots felt they had the cash?
2) I thought you were saying that the management of the company was musing publicly they could buy DAL, which seemed rather foolish. I bet you that they would drop their stock price at least 5% in 20 minutes if they ever started musing about such a thing in public.
3) We agree: 50-seat RJ's have a very ....peculiar way of unlocking the value of the larger company.
4) When you barf in your mouth, be sure to clench your teeth. It saves the larger pieces for later. In case you can't get fed on your next trip.

NuGuy

Red is right on the mark.

Prior to the LBO, NWA owned everything...and had even paid off the Republic merger. Plus the owned outright some VERY expensive property in Japan.

NWA was a very old school company. Financially conservative to a T, even to the point of paying COD for new aircraft and had a lot of money in the bank. Why? Because when you had the long term interests of the company in mind, that's what you did.

Unfortunately, in the "new age", all that did was make NWA a big fat target...like leaving the keys on the roof of your brand new Escalade.

The irony of the situation was that a couple of smart pilot-types saw the danger. They put together a proposal and went to the board and explained what could happen, the dangers, and what to do to prevent it (some kind of poison pill). The board basically patted the pilots on the head and said "awww, nothing like that will happen".

Now the way I heard it (one of the old timers might want to jump in and correct me), is that someone on the board thought that the buy out scenario was a good idea after hearing it from the pilots, resigned from the board, and put together the LBO idea and sold the Beach Boys on it.

Nu

KC10 FATboy

Wow, I didn't know you could do that. I would definitely be interested in learning how to do this.

Sink r8

Which goes to show you no good deed ever goes unpunished.

As far as everything else you wrote, I can think of at least one other airline that played the game in a very, very financially conservative manner.

Alas...

sailingfun

Google PDANET. You will find the answers you need. Its not a free program but withstands updates to your phone so you can keep the OS current. I think its 19 bucks.

Nosmo King

The board members initials were GW and he was later busted for allegedly trying to sneak a bong through airport security.

One minor correction - COD (check) for new aircraft and they would always accept delivery on Friday afternoon after the banks had closed, so the check couldn't be deposited until the next Monday...

forgot to bid

Hmmm, there must be some rich line employees at said airline... never thought of that... I mean personally, if I was that rich all of a sudden I'd be out on my DHC-2 Beaver, dropping my lines down to nothing and claiming I buy everything on credit cards and Delta pays "pretty good" just nobody thinks I'm super rich. They'd just feel bad for me. But hey, thats just me.
---
As to the iphone discussion, my 3GS phone if fully charged at 8am will be dead by 8pm if I didn't use it at all. If I used it spairingly, dead by 6. If I used it a fair amount, dead by 3 and a lot its dead by 10am. I am not kidding. About 80% of the time I cannot call the van, my phone is dead. I've heard if you take it off the charger once its at 100% charged then it'll last longer than if it stayed on a charger for hours, but kind of hard to do in the middle of the night.

When flying I have to turn it to airplane mode and then turn it off, if I just turn it off it dies very fast even while off. I like the phone, I just don't like feeling like I am carrying an expensive computer in my pocket that could too easily be lost and the battery is horrific.

Of course, I do abuse pandora from time to time.

scambo1

ftb;

go to settings, turn off wifi, then go to general and turn off bluetooth and location services. this will make your battery last much longer.

1234

The above statement is exactly how the LBO happened. Not only were there are lot of assets to use as collateral such as aircraft and property in the USA, but there was some very expensive property in Japan (especially downtown area) and due to accounting rules, this property showed on the accounting books at a highly discounted value (they had to carry the value of the property at what it was valued when purchased).

The banks were more than happy to loan out the $300 plus million because the beach boys were able to use all the assets as collateral on the loan.

gloopy

Even if a certain regional has the cash (or can get the credit, whatever) to buy a legacy or not (and regardless of if they would even if they could) is all mental youknowwhatturbation until it happens, which it probably never will.

That said, what some mega regionals can and will be able to do is let their executive talent loose to play with airplanes in the real world. Even if they end up liquidating ala IndyAir, they will inflict significant damage to the very mainline that pumped them up for so many years, and they would have achieved that with the money the respective legacy paid them (so much for the savings of outsourcing huh?)

I predict exactly this for a certain mega regional if and when their constant growth gravy train ever leaves the station. They WILL get bigger airplanes and compete against the mainlines that sponsored their phenom growth for decades. They might succeed and do permanant damage, or they might fail and only do significant short term damage. But either way, no legacy will ever make or save a penny by doing business with them in the long run. But they don't teach that at Harvard anymore anyway so who cares.