NEWS: Continental Airlines Starts the Year Down

Continental Airlines revealed that January was a very tough month in a DOT filing Friday. The airline lost $47 million in January which works out to around $1.5 million a day...I'll pause while that sinks in. Now for the sucker punch. Shares of ExpressJet, Continental's regional carrier, made a big contribution to the airline's pension fund which helped mitigate the overall loss. Without that contribution the loss would have been about $3 million a day. A quick visit to the calculator says that works out to $93 million. Folks, Continental lost $203 million in the whole 4th quarter last year. Obvivously, not the start they work looking for.

January is typically a tough month for all airlines but Continental is not resting on that excuse. They have targeted another $500 million in labor savings by the end of February but have only achieved $169 million to date. The bottom line is that Continental needs to stem the losses quickly before it saps their cash reserves and puts them into a liquidity problem.