Frontier Airlines profitable again (or “Wouldn’t you like to go to Denver again someday?”)

12 comments February 2nd, 2009

Frontier Airlines just posted its first profitable fourth-quarter in five years, and is working its way out of bankruptcy. Let’s start the idle and baseless speculation that it could someday be a viable candidate for that RFD-DEN route again.

ANCJason, whaddya think?

Today’s fuel price musings - Gas prices hinge on strike threat

1 comment February 2nd, 2009

The continued bad economic climate *should* dampen prices at the pump, but that pesky threat of a refinery workers strike is keeping them up. Luckily, the strike was averted yesterday and talks continue, though a strike could be called at any time. If that happens, you’ll see a bunch of refining stop, and gasoline prices will go up (gas futures already increased 10 percent last week). Meanwhile, there will be a disconnect with crude prices, because with refineries cutting back, crude demand will drop … and crude prices would drop.

Phil Flynn notes that the overall trend for prices should be to remain low because of the economy. So if and when the strike issue gets settled, we should be back to stability in pricing.

Here are today’s prices (courtesy of AAA’s fuelgaugereport.com):

Gasoline: Rockford rose three cents to $1.94 a gallon. We’re fifth in the state and were tied at 80th of the nation’s 280 metro areas. The Illinois average rose slightly to $1.93. The national average rose more than a cent to $1.88. Illinois has the 13th-highest gas prices in the nation, including the District of Columbia. Alaska, California, Hawaii, Nevada, New York and Washington average more than $2 a gallon.

Diesel: Rockford remained at $2.35 a gallon. We have the sixth-highest diesel prices in the state. The state average dropped slightly to $2.46. The national average dropped a cent to $2.37. Illinois has the 16th-highest diesel prices in the country, including the District of Columbia. Only Alaska and Hawaii remain above $3 a gallon.