Winging It

Sometimes you just gotta place both elbows on the desk, lean forward and read very slowly.

Let me see, now. A potential takeover of one airline by another. Ok, I'm feeling the presence of Gordon Gekko whispering something about 'Blue Star Airlines' into my ear. Read on. The target airline claims that the purchasing airline is neither a 'white hat' in the morality play of big money nor is it worthy as a suitor since it does not have a sufficient grasp on it's own financial operations. (Add your own 'harumph' at will.) The target airline, however, suspends it's own financial 'guidance' just days before a crucial vote on the proposed takeover. Uh-oh, this sounds ominous.

Guidance.That's what the financial community used to call an 'earnings forecast' before a news reader on a cable show skipped a TelePrompter line or two during a missle manufacturing story and, well, here we are with guidance firmly ensconced into the common parlance. Companies no longer offer to forecast their own earnings, but they are willing to guide.

I used to receive guidance from a high school librarian who moonlighted as our career counselor. Go into textile engineering, son, there's a bright future there. I used to receive guidance from my father, too, except that his...ahem... guidance made the worst job in the yarn mill look like a good career move.

So, we are left with an un-guiding and unwilling Brahmin airline company pitted against a wily and unworthy competitor who seeks '...to build a stronger airline for both us and them.' and that seems to be less a marriage made in the friendly skies and more a three legged sack race across the tarmac.

No matter what happens, it sounds like the Barbarians are at Gate A3.