Airline Finance News - North America

AirGuide Business, April 14, 2008

Frontier Airlines, Denver's second-largest carrier, plunged 69 percent to 48 cents at 4:30 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading, after tumbling 12 percent yesterday. First Data told the airline April 8 it would retain half the proceeds of bankcard sales and increase collateral to $130 million from $54.5 million, Frontier Vice President Edward Christie said in a statement filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. Greenwood Village, Colorado-based First Data, the biggest credit card payment processor, was bought by leveraged buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. last year. Apr 11, 2008

Frontier Airlines

Frontier Airlines' filing will block efforts to collect debts, including the proceeds that First Data is seeking to retain. The 30 largest creditors without collateral backing their claims are owed a total of $109 million, court papers show. Wells Fargo & Co., the fifth-largest U.S. bank by assets, is listed as the largest unsecured creditor. It's owed $93 million. The largest secured claimholder, owed $84 million, is Q Aviation of Fort Worth, Texas. Apr 11, 2008

Frontier Airlines

Frontier serves 62 cities in 36 U.S. states, plus six in Mexico, one in Canada and one in Costa Rica. It employs about 6,000 people. Subsidiaries Frontier Airlines and Lynx Aviation also sought bankruptcy. Frontier's $92 million of 5 percent convertible bonds due in 2025 traded at 28 cents on the dollar today, according to Trace, the bond-price reporting system of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. Before today, the securities last traded in February at about 60 cents, Trace data show. Apr 11, 2008

JetBlue Airways

JetBlue Airways said on Wednesday its founder and chairman, David Neeleman, will not stand for re-election at its annual meeting next month. Neeleman, who founded JetBlue in 1998, recently announced plans to start a new airline based in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and said he will be devoting his full attention to that new venture. He stepped down as JetBlue's chief executive last May, taking on the role of non-executive chairman a few months after the airline miscalculated the effect of an ice storm in New York and had to cancel almost 1,200 flights, stranding thousands of passengers. Neeleman, who regards himself more as an entrepreneur than an airline manager, shook up the industry with JetBlue, a low-fare carrier with perks like live television and leather seats. The airline took its first flight in 2000. Before JetBlue, Neeleman set up Morris Air and eventually sold it to Southwest Airlines. Apr 10, 2008

JetBlue Airways

JetBlue Airways said preliminary March passenger RASM rose 13% year-over-year as it flew 2.46 billion RPMs, up 8.4% from the year-ago month. Capacity climbed 13.4% to 3 billion ASMs and load factor slipped 3.7 points to 81.8%. Apr 7, 2008

Northwest Airlines

Among the jobs little boys dream of - policeman, fireman, bulldozer driver - airline pilot long held the added virtue of satisfying grown-up dreams: pay that reached $300,000 a year, 20 days a month off work, the prestige of one day commanding a $200 million airplane, and a lush retirement at age 60. But the airline industry's financial collapse this decade did away with much of that, leaving thousands of young men - and increasingly women - chasing a dream toward a disappointing reality. Captain started training last month to fly a 76-seat regional jet for a Northwest Airlines subsidiary and expects to make about $21,000 his first year. Like most airline pilots, Captain had his heart set on flying "ever since I was a little kid," he said. "I can't see myself in an office." In recent years, he and his wife, June, were in the odd position of saving part of his military pay so they and their two sons could afford to have him work in the private sector. It could take him a decade to work his way back up to his former income. Apr 11, 2008