Things in the Sky

Yesterday, Republic announced earnings of $0.41/share, which is a bit worse than expected. But let’s look at the exciting stuff/

First, “During the quarter, the Company removed twelve 50-seat aircraft from its Continental operations.” Hm, I didn’t know that Continental was sizing down that operation a bit.

On the Frontier front, nothing much was mentioned in the release, and right now things just need to move through bankruptcy court. If I recall correctly, there are still a few days left for competing bids to be filed. Everything should be taken care of next month.

Next, the airline reported, “On July 10, 2009 the Company invested $7.5 million of cash in Mokulele Airlines, increasing our investment from 55% to approximately 89% of Mokulele’s common stock.” Maybe I was just paying attention, but I hadn’t heard about that additional investment.

Finally, with Midwest:

In addition to the 12 E170 aircraft currently operated for Midwest, the Company expects to operate nine 99-seat E190 aircraft and twelve 37-50 seat aircraft, all of which will be placed into service between July 2009 and January 2010. The E190 aircraft will be sourced on short-term leases and the 37-50 seat aircraft will be sourced from the Company’s existing fleet of aircraft or on short-term leases through a third party lessor.

So, there will be an E190 to replace each 717, as was pretty much expected. As for the RJs, here’s how the ERJ looks in Midwest colors.