Earnings Labs

American Airlines Group Inc. (AAL)

Q1 2008 Earnings Call· Wed, Apr 16, 2008

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon and welcome to the AMR first quarter 2008 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) I am very pleased to have with us today AMR’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Gerard Arpey, their Executive Vice President of Finance and Planning and Chief Financial Officer Tom Horton and here with our opening remarks is AMR’s Managing Director of Investor Relations Eric Briggle.

Eric Briggle

Investor Relations

Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us on today’s earning call. During the call Gerard Arpey will provide an overview of our performance and outlook and then Tom Horton will provide the details regarding our earnings for the first quarter along with some perspective on the remainder of 2008. After that we’ll be happy to take your questions. In the interest of time, please limit your questions to one with a follow up. Our earnings release earlier today contained highlights of our financial results for the quarter. This release continued to provide additional information regarding any performance and costs guidance which should assist you in having accurate information about our performance and outlook. In addition, the earnings release contains reconciliation of any non-GAAP financial measurements that we may discuss. This release along with the webcast of today’s call is available on the investor relations section of www.AA.com. Finally, let me note that many of our comments today regarding our outlook for revenue and costs as well as forecasts of capacity, traffic, load factor, fuel costs, fleet span and other matters will constitute forward-looking statements. These matters are subject to a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ from our expectations. These factors include changes in economic, business and financial conditions, high fuel prices and other factors referred to in our SEC filing including our 2007 annual report on Form 10K. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Gerard.

Gerard J. Arpey

Management

Good afternoon everyone. As you have seen in the press release we issued this morning we loss $328 million in the first quarter or $1.32 per share after six straight profitable quarters this is our second consecutive quarter we’ve loss and it was $409 million worse than last year. It is a disappointing result and it is indicative of the challenges we’re facing in 2008. I want to take some time to talk about some of these challenges and I also want to reinforce some of the steps we’re taking to mitigate some of the impacts associated with them. Top of mind for the industry is obviously the price of fuel. Fuel expense for the quarter was $2.1 billion. A $665 million fuel price increase versus last year. For the quarter fuel prices represented about 35% of our total operating costs. Not only are prices high but they are also extremely volatile. Every dollar per barrel increase in the price of fuel equates to increased expense of about $80 million on an annualized basis through AMR earnings. In 14 of 60 trading days during the quarter the price per barrel of jet fuel changed by at least $3 so that equates to about a quarter of a billion dollars annual swing in earnings and this uncertainty obviously presents a challenge in planning for the future but this of course has become the new reality for American and for the industry and there’s certainly no silver bullet to that problem. The bottom line is that fuel prices look to present a very significant challenge for us and the industry for the foreseeable future. While our fuel bill is an obvious problem there are other challenges that we faced this year including operational disruptions driven by the weather and the ATC system…

Thomas W. Horton

Management

Good afternoon everyone. The first quarter was a challenging time for the airline industry and for AMR. In the first quarter we loss $328 million versus a profit of $81 million in the first quarter of last year. This is as Gerard said, our second straight loss and highlights the steep climb facing AMR and the industry as a whole in 2008. As Gerard pointed out we’re finishing several hurdles this year. Of course, the events of last week were a very trying time for our company and for our customers and we’ve been working very hard to get the operation back to normal and take care of our customers. But, we’ve got other big challenges to face down this year. Fuel prices seem to be hitting record highs every few days and some experts thing the US economy has already entered a recession. Clearly, there is a lot of uncertainty facing the industry today but it’s also important to point out that we have put ourselves in a much better position to face these uncertainties than just a few years ago by repairing our balance sheet and bolstering our liquidity position. That said, we’re not sitting around hoping that oil prices drop or that the economy holds up and, as I’ll talk about later we’ve outlined several steps that will help us better handle these uncertainties including capacity reductions, acceleration of our fleet replacement plan and costs and capital controls. Before I move to the numbers, let me first point out that we’ve reclassified the marketing component of the sales of Advantage Miles from passenger revenue in to other revenue. We’ve outlined this change in our earnings release for the current quarter as well as the aggregate impact for the second, third and fourth quarters of 2007. I’ll point…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our first question will come from the line of Mike Linenberg. Please go ahead. Michael Linenberg – Merrill Lynch: A couple of questions, I guess regarding the catastrophe cuts which come later this year, how should we look at that? Is that reduced utilization? Is that MD 80s getting put down? Are other airplanes getting put down like 767 200s? Any color on that would be great.

Thomas W. Horton

Management

There will be some number of MD 80s that will be retired. We’re still working through that number because we may choose to reinvest some of the freed up aircraft for improved dependability as Gerard mentioned. So, there will be some retirement of MD 80s and in addition we’ll have three A300s that will come off lease this year which we will return to lessors. Michael Linenberg – Merrill Lynch: Okay. My next question is when we look at that gain on Beacon Tom that you talked about, the significant gain, when we look at calculations of the various metrics for the various debt covenants does that figure in to that calculation? Is that a good guide net calculation or is that excluded because a lot of times charges and gains are out? And, when is the next measurement date? I think there was a measurement date 12 months through year end 07 and I’m specifically referring to the covenant related to the credit facility?

Thomas W. Horton

Management

We run the covenant calculation quarterly. Michael Linenberg – Merrill Lynch: Okay.

Thomas W. Horton

Management

We’ll do that every quarter. And, with respect to the gain I believe that’s excluded for purposes of debt calculation.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of James Higgins with Soleil Securities. Please go ahead. James Higgins – Solebury Research/Soleil Securities: I’m wondering do you have any early read on how revenues in and out of London are fairing with all the additional capacity that’s gone in to Heathrow recently?

Thomas W. Horton

Management

Well, it hasn’t been helpful. James Higgins – Solebury Research/Soleil Securities: I should have guessed that.

Thomas W. Horton

Management

Yeah. What we’re seeing is our Trans Atlantic revenue for ASM in the first quarter was actually down slightly. The rest of Europe was up pretty significantly so the net of those two leaves to the number I reported to you earlier. So, what we’re seeing in the UK in particular is year revenue performance that’s been driven by load factor declines in the premium cabins and I think that’s to be expected given more capacity. But also, I think softer demand as reflected in some of the weakness in the banking sector. James Higgins – Solebury Research/Soleil Securities: Any read on what the credit markets look like for debt refinancing? Can you just review for us what you have coming due this year?

Thomas W. Horton

Management

Well, we have about $1 billion of debt repayments this year which are embedded in the guidance we’ve offered up and that includes the convertible debt facility that we have that is about $300 million. Obviously, the financing markets are not very good. I think with respect to secured financing on new 737 aircraft probably not too bad given the very strong demand for that aircraft worldwide. But, as to secured debt, it’s obviously not a very good market.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Gary Chase with Lehman Brothers. Please go ahead. Gary Chase – Lehman Brothers: A couple of revenue questions first. Gerard, I think I saw somewhere and it might have been a communiqué issued to employees something about you were hopeful that capacity reduction in the second half would help get price a little bit towards this fuel challenge. Do you guys think that we’ve seen enough come out to date through the shutdowns and announcements that you’ve seen from American and others to have some optimism there? Can you just walk us through your thought process there?

Gerard J. Arpey

Management

Well, Gary I did in my letter to employees talk about the fact that a number of smaller carriers have not only filed for bankruptcy but actually liquidated and while I certainly feel for the employees of those companies it’s surprising how much of an impact a small airline can have on pricing in a particular market. So, the reason I put that in the letter is because I do think this is a business that pricing is driven by supply and demand and for many, many years we have been talking about capacity, we’ve been constraining our capacity. We took further steps today and the industry and our competitors will do whatever they’re going to do but we’ve got to get supply and demand to the point where we can recover our costs. I can’t remember what I said in the employee letter, a glimmer of hope or something, but certainly it’s positive when capacity comes out of an industry that is consistently selling its product way below the cost to produce it. Gary Chase – Lehman Brothers: Do you think enough has come out through these announcements or are you just noting that there’s a trend here that seems favorable?

Gerard J. Arpey

Management

Well, maybe I come at it this way and say based on where we sit today we are nowhere near recovering our extraordinary increase in fuel price. So, we’ve got a long way to go and I don’t know capacity is entirely the answer but we’ve got a long way to go to get our prices to the point where we’re recovering our costs and of course every business has got to do that.

Thomas W. Horton

Management

Gary, in the capacity plan that we shared with you today was put in place when oil prices were lower. They’ve continued to rise over the last several weeks as you know. So, I think we, and I suspect the rest of the industry are going to have to go back and take a sharp pencil to capacity plans and take one more look at it. Gary Chase – Lehman Brothers: You alluded to in your comments just the volatility of fuel is – I mean, it’s almost incomprehensible when you think about the potential impact to you. The last time you were in a down cycle, a standard deviation in oil was $5, today it’s closer to $30. What kind of changes do you think you need and obviously there’s cost reduction, there’s capacity reduction due to the fact that oil prices are high but how do you deal with the fact that energy is so volatile? You think about a $30 swing, boy that’s a heck of a lot of difference. I think $30 to the downside we’d see a different environment on that.

Gerard J. Arpey

Management

Well, yeah you’re absolutely right so leverage is extraordinary so we kept the pace up on our fuel hedging. I think Tom said we got 32% in the second quarter somewhere in the $70 range. Again, the leveraging Gary is extraordinary. I just pulled out this morning, I was looking at the history and if you go back a few years our oil bill in 2003 for essentially the same size airline, actually a little bit smaller today than we were then we spent $2.8 billion for fuel in 2003 and the guidance that we’ve given you today would have our fuel bill at $9.2 billion o, over $6 billion increase in fuel. Obviously, a lot of our hard work in the company has been obscured by this oil phenomena and we’re doing everything we can to recover that on the revenue side of the equation because as you point out there are limits to what we can do on the costs side of the equation and that’s why we’ve been pushing hard on it in [fillery] revenues for years now, why we have been a consistent price leader in the industry. But, I think we have to acknowledge that yes, it’s very volatile and makes it difficult to do long range planning and we have to plan in a disruptive environment and do the best that we can. That’s what we’re trying to do is continue to look at our capacity real time, look at everything we’re doing on the revenue side and try to do everything we can to mitigate this. Gary Chase – Lehman Brothers: Could it change your longer term appetite to re-fleet? I mean just with the uncertainty that it could be a lot higher how does that affect the decision to re-fleet?

Gerard J. Arpey

Management

Well, Tom talked about that. I mean certainly there’s a direct linkage to our decision to accelerate the pace on the 737 800s. I think we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the next generation narrow body airplane that Boeing and Airbus are going to build that’s going to be the equivalent of the 787 in the narrow body field. But as that date continues to move out in to the future and oil prices continue to be high you can get very clear ROI just on the oil nearer term. So yeah, it is definitely impacted our fleet plan and that’s why we’ve accelerated airplanes in the next year and have outlined our plans for 2010.

Thomas W. Horton

Management

Gary, you’re hitting the nail on the head, there’s really no play book right now for $110 oil. What it means is the revenue and expense equation is broken and we need to go about trying to fix that and that’s going to be everything we talked about today but it may very well mean for the industry a smaller industry, less capacity flying around. Gary Chase – Lehman Brothers: I guess that’s what I’m driving at, it could be $130 and I’m just wondering if the flexibility you have with the MD 80s is valuable and if you loss some of that by having a new fleet?

Thomas W. Horton

Management

Well, I think we’ve had a lot of flexibility there so it’s a long way before we exhaust that flexibility. We have 300 of those airplanes, we’re moving forward with fleet replacement at a faster pace but we have a lot of flexibility to move the fleet up or down.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Frank Boroch with Bear Stearns. Please go ahead. Frank Boroch – Bear Stearns: Tom, I have a question about the cap ex, what’s the plan to finance or to pay for the PDPs today? Are you looking for external financing or is that going to come from cash on hand?

Thomas W. Horton

Management

Well, we’re looking at a PDP financing and we’ve done that in the past and that seems to be a sensible way to handle PDPs but we also have as I pointed out earlier ample cash on hand. So, if we can find the sensible financing we will probably do it that way. Frank Boroch – Bear Stearns: Okay. Then, a follow up on a question Mike had about the fixed charge covenant. I guess, are you exploring at present a relaxation of the covenant for the second quarter test?

Thomas W. Horton

Management

We have not had any discussions on that subject as of yet. Frank Boroch – Bear Stearns: Then, when you talked about the advanced book loads was that just really for April? Or, was that just sort of a six week glance? Is there anything you could tell us about May bookings?

Thomas W. Horton

Management

What I gave you was the advanced bookings for the rest of the second quarter so sales were down about .7% year-over-year. So, down a little but I think it’s fair to say bookings have held up fairly well relative to what we’ve seen in downturns past. Frank Boroch – Bear Stearns: Okay, great. And, maybe one for Gerard, is there ever a point where the fleet replacement needs it could make sense to look at another small carrier that maybe has a large supply of new generation aircraft as a means of addressing some of the fleet issues?

Gerard J. Arpey

Management

Well, I wouldn’t completely rule that out but the costs of standardizing these airplanes is considerable and because of the flexibility we have in our Boeing contract where we can step u deliveries on pretty short notice compared to most in the industry that is probably – and because of the pricing we have in that deal is probably the most practical and efficient way for us to buy airplanes.

Operator

Operator

The next question will come from William Greene with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. William Greene – Morgan Stanley: I think we kind of have to ask about this, it looks like if your competitors are successful merging you will no longer be the largest airline here. I know you guys think you make money where you’re big but do you think that’s all that critical particularly as we go in to a period of weaker demand I worry that perhaps there are cost synergies that are bigger as you get bigger. Can you just comment a little bit about how important size is?

Gerard J. Arpey

Management

Well Bill, we’re fortunate to have a very strong network irrespective of any consolidation that may or may not take place in the industry. We have built a very strong position in Dallas Fort Worth, in Miami, in Latin America and across the Atlantic Heathrow and to other major European cities. We have what we believe is the most powerful frequent flyer program in the world. We also have very competitive positions in key business markets in the United States. I think we’re very competitive in Chicago, LA and New York. All those locations have international service around the world to Asia and elsewhere and I think our One World Partnership represents a collection of the best global airlines and brands in the world. So, we believe we will remain competitive irrespective of any consolidation that occurs. The real challenge is being profitable and I think we are not unique in our struggle to meet that challenge. Consolidation may be one of the factors that lead to a more profitable industry but it is just one factor. Having said all that we may or may not participate in consolidation. Your cautious remarks, we are very mindful of having been down this path before. Any steps we take domestically or globally on that front would have to make sense for our employees, our customers and our shareholders so that’s the way I see it. Tom, you can add any thoughts you have. William Greene – Morgan Stanley: Can I just ask about antitrust community with BA, is there any reason you wouldn’t pursue this now?

Gerard J. Arpey

Management

Well Bill, that’s been a continuing subject of discussion between us and British Airways. I certainly don’t speak for BA but historically there has been a lot of opposition because the notion was when we got to Open Skies in London and at Heathrow folks weren’t really going to be able to get in there and fly. They weren’t going to be able to get slots, they weren’t going to be able to get facilities and if you go back in the past we were saying, “That’s not true. You can get slots, you can get facilities, we did it.” We didn’t get in to Heathrow by a gift, we bought our way in to Heathrow and what you’ve seen is our competitors have found a way to access the Heathrow market so we think that letting that play out, letting the regulators see that there has been access is going to be helpful to our case. Speaking from American’s perspective I think there will be an appropriate time to cross that bridge.

Thomas W. Horton

Management

And if you look at what’s actually happened since the Open Skies agreement the US and [inaudible] carriers alone have found 16 slot pairs to operate US London service in that critical Trans Atlantic window and that’s equivalent to American’s operation so there’s no shortage of slots if you’re willing to go out and trade for them and that’s what has happened. We think that blunts the argument that American and BA need to give out slots. William Greene – Morgan Stanley: Tom then maybe I could ask just a couple of final little detail questions. Do you have the estimate of the exchange rate on your yields in the quarter?

Thomas W. Horton

Management

No but I’ll have Eric try to run that down for you. William Greene – Morgan Stanley: Then, just to clarify the reason you mentioned that the credit markets don’t seem to be open to you for unsecured debt, if you will, the convertibles, what not I assume that you means that you will end up paying these out of cash if you are required to? Is that a fair characterization of what you meant?

Thomas W. Horton

Management

No, I didn’t say that. In fact, I just said that it was a tough credit market, no secret to any one on this phone call that the credit markets are tough. But, we haven’t approached banks, we haven’t yet included or required a waiver on the credit facility. If we did we could go out and pursue that as we have in the past and if we were unable to resolve that on terms that we thought were sensible we’d simply pay it off. Its $400 million against the cash balance of $5 billion.

Gerard J. Arpey

Management

That number use to be a lot bigger years ago. It’s not nearly the number it was years ago. William Greene – Morgan Stanley: Okay. But, it’s not in the $1 bill you referred to?

Thomas W. Horton

Management

No, it’s not. As to the convertible the market does seem to be open to doing convert deals. I’m not sure that’s in the interest of our shareholders but that’s something we would certainly have as an option as does every company. So, that market is vibrant. As you probably know, we have the ability under our current convert to satisfy those either with cash or with stock or to do a replacement financing so those are all alternatives we’ll be considering this year. William Greene – Morgan Stanley: Do you have a number for unencumbered assets? That’s my last question.

Thomas W. Horton

Management

I do not. We typically don’t disclose that.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Jamie Baker with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead. Jamie Baker – J.P. Morgan: Gerard, if we look at the equity performance as of late and particularly where credit to [inaudible] are trading the market seems to be reaching the conclusion that an AMR bankruptcy filing is increasingly shall we say difficult to completely rule out. I realize this is a very sensitive question to ask you point blank and you did touch on the huge steps you’re taking in your prepared remarks but I think what we need to hear is first what you consider your minimum liquidity threshold to be and second, just how hard is this management willing to work in order to avoid Chapter 11 given what some would argue is a competitive disadvantage you have for not having gone through it already?

Gerard J. Arpey

Management

Well Jamie, I think we have demonstrated we have a demonstrated track record of how hard we are willing to work to protect the interest of our shareholders. And in fact, having spent the first two years on this job teetering on the edge of bankruptcy in 2003 and 2004 I have been very mindful of that experience and that is why we have for many years been working very hard on our capital structure and our cash balance and the pay down of debt and putting ourselves in the best possible position to weather this kind of storm. In terms of the guidance in terms of the risks for this company or any other airline for that matter in this oil or economic environment I’d just point you to our 10K and 10Q and you can look at the highlights of all of the risk factors. But, there’s a reason why we built that cash balance and you will recall me being heavily criticized in the 2006 era for building such a large cash balance but I think there was a reason for that.

Thomas W. Horton

Management

Jamie, maybe just to add to that when I went to CFO school I learned never comment on stock price or the CDS market but as you know we’ve chosen to carry a significant amount of cash given the volatility that we’ve seen in the business particularly around oil price. So we stack up pretty well versus virtually all of our legacy competitors whether you’re looking at absolute cash balances or cash as a percent of revenues and we’ve been working very hard to strengthen the balance sheet considerably over the last couple of years. As we’ve paid down debt we have created significant amounts of unencumbered aircraft. The last point I’d make is our sale of American Beacon which we announced earlier today was really all about creating value for our shareholders, something we’ve been working on for some time. It does have the benefit of adding to the liquidity cushion that I just referred to. So, at the end of the day I think liquidity is an industry issue at $110 oil but I think it would be in correct to single out American.

Gerard J. Arpey

Management

Jamie, on your point on our costs structure because we didn’t file for bankruptcy like all the other legacy carriers have done in their history at least one time. If you actually break it down, in total our total costs structure is not that far on the stage of length adjusted basis off some of those guys that went bankrupt. Our disadvantage is in our labor costs, it’s not secret on average we have the highest paid people in the industry but on the non-labor cost side we’ve done a very good job of controlling those costs and one of the effects you’re seeing is this Delta Northwest merger is actually completed is you’re going to see some labor conversions as a consequence of that. I think we have to continue to work hard to make our costs structure competitive but if you actually look at us compared to United or US Air or a lot of these guys we’re really not that far off the mark in total. Jamie Baker – J.P. Morgan: And to your credit Gerard, on hording cash it’s just amazing to me to think that six or eight months ago there was so much pressure being applied to you to pay a dividend. Is there a heightened sense of urgency here to complete the sale of Eagle or monetize Advantage or consider capital infusion from a partner? Or, is there not that sense of urgency just yet?

Thomas W. Horton

Management

Well, we’re proceeding with Beacon and with Eagle because we think those are sensible things for the shareholder. I think there is a heightened sense of urgency around righting the revenue cost equation for us and for the whole industry so that’s what the steps we talked about were all about and we’re going to keep looking at all of those things.

Operator

Operator

We’ll now go to the line of Kevin Crissey with UBS. Please go ahead. Kevin Crissey – UBS: I guess to be more specific, Jamie mentioned it but the Advantage sale is that not on the table? Or, it hasn’t been on the table and now may become on the table?

Thomas W. Horton

Management

Well, as we’ve mentioned in the past we’re looking at all of our strategic assets under this review. With respect to Advantage the thought there has been that there’s an ability to unlock some value for shareholders that may not be reflected in AMR stock today. But, I think also still important to keep in mind that what’s being considered or what’s being talked about is a separation of Advantage and which sort of involved dividing AMR into two parts, a cash flow driven business with a potential to generate ongoing dividends and the remaining business without the Advantage cash flow. That, as we said in the past, raises some fundamental questions that must be addressed around cash usage and risk profile and such and in the current economic environment, fuel prices, that seems a pretty long pass. But, it’s something we’ll keep looking at and thinking about and if there is value to be created there we’ll give it very serious consideration. Kevin Crissey – UBS: The follow up question then would be AMR’s view on the treatment by the Department of Justice of multiple mergers simultaneously. Is there a three week, a month window? Do you have a view that you can share on if you were involved in some sort of consolidation the time under which you would have to do it to be considered somewhat simultaneous with Delta Northwest?

Thomas W. Horton

Management

We don’t really have a strong view on that. I think some in the industry have though that the current administration would be more accommodating to mergers and if that’s the case then a subsequent deal would need to be done relatively quickly. But, I think it’s unclear to whether that is even true given that we don’t know how the presidential election is going to shake out. Kevin Crissey – UBS: I guess I’ll break the rule if I could just real quick ask one more follow up. Did you mention the multiple that was paid for Beacon?

Thomas W. Horton

Management

I did not mention it but you can do the math, it was over a 10 times EBTIDA multiple.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Mike Derchin with FTN Midwest Securities. Please go ahead. Michael Derchin – FTN Midwest Securities: One of the problems that you’ve got with oil is the crack spread up in the $30 to $35 range. Can you give us any insights on anything going on structurally in the refining business in the Gulf to account for that level of crack spread?

Gerard J. Arpey

Management

Mike, we cannot and despite great efforts to understand the difference between crude and after you lay the crack spread on it, we don’t have a good explanation for that. And, if there is one, I certainly ask a lot of informed folks and I have not gotten straight answers so I think it’s a commodity. It’s driven by commodity forces and we can’t make any sense out of it. Michael Derchin – FTN Midwest Securities: Do you have any guess or what is your assumption going forward on when you forecast going forward what are you using?

Thomas W. Horton

Management

We can’t predict the forward terms for oil.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Ray Neidl with Calyon Securities. Please go ahead. Ray Neidl – Calyon Securities: Being an ex bond analyst I congratulate you guys for building up such a large cash reserves in good times because we knew this was coming, something like this anyway.

Gerard J. Arpey

Management

Thank you. That means a lot coming from you. Ray Neidl – Calyon Securities: Now, related to the cash reserves though with what’s going on in the industry, M&A activity, you kind of put your thoughts out on that but as other airlines merge, if certain assets become available that you thought were valuable to American Airlines would you want to get in that type of gain and use some of your precious cash reserves to corner that which might be a one time opportunity?

Gerard J. Arpey

Management

Ray, I think we’ll be paying careful attention to that. If that opportunity develops of course, we’ll then have to weigh the risk reward for our shareholders in any such situation should it develop. We’ll definitely pay close attention and as I said earlier we may not participate in consolidation. Anything we do domestically or globally will have to make sense for all our stakeholders and if we do something tactically we’ll put it through the same way. Ray Neidl – Calyon Securities: Okay. Regarding the possible spin off for selling of American Eagle, I guess eventually you’re going to break out some of those numbers for us so we can take a look at it. But, I think in the past you’ve indicated that your labor costs there are very high and it might make it difficult to spin that off. Is that still the case or are you making reforms in that area? Plus, the Eagle balance sheet regarding the aircraft, how is that being reformed?

Gerard J. Arpey

Management

Well Ray, we’re working on all that. Our primary issues at Eagle is not – we do have a little bit higher labor cost but that’s primarily driven by high seniority level at Eagle versus our competitors and we’re working on that whole issue of depending on which form the separation takes where the ownership of the airplanes ends up and how that will work and that’s not ready for primetime yet. Ray Neidl – Calyon Securities: Okay. And the balance sheet, do you have any idea how the aircraft will be financed? On leas basis or turned over to you? Or, are you still working on that too?

Gerard J. Arpey

Management

We’re still working on that.

Operator

Operator

Our final question will come from the line of Chris Cuomo with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Chris Cuomo – Goldman Sachs: Just a couple of quick ones, first I think you alluded to some cuts in cap ex non-aircraft related in 2009 and beyond. Can you just give some color as to where you’re going to be making those adjustments?

Gerard J. Arpey

Management

Chris, really what we’re commenting on there is in this oil economic environment is we’re going to be real cautious with our discretionary and capital spending to make sure that anything we do in this environment we get a very quick pay back. That’s really what Tom was highlighting there. So, anything that’s discretionary we’ll just be really cautious in this environment going forward until perhaps we get a little bit more stable environment to deal with. Chris Cuomo – Goldman Sachs: That sounds like sensible decision. Then, just a quick detail, I think you mentioned an estimate of $75 to $80 million on loss revenue related to the weather and cancellations this quarter. Is it possible to parse out the split between the two?

Thomas W. Horton

Management

I think what we said high 10s of millions of dollars. I think that is what we’re on record saying. Chris Cuomo – Goldman Sachs: Okay. So, in total for the two of them high 10s of millions of dollars. I’m just trying to get at the differential between the two.

Thomas W. Horton

Management

As we think about breaking that out loss revenue is in the neighborhood of $75 million. Again, that’s an early estimate because we’re just off of the event. You get some costs savings obviously because you’re not flying the airplanes and you’ve got some cost headwinds associated with disrupted passengers. So, you net it all out and the number we gave is sort of high 10s of millions of dollars until we’ve got some better information.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen that does conclude our analyst portion of today’s Q&A.