Mr. Silver: It's really a two-pronged approach with the airlines. Internationally, I think you're going to see a lot of consolidation in the industry; you're going to see a lot of partnering up. So you're going to see the Deltas, you're going to see the Air Frances, you're going to see the Lufthansas, you're going to see all of these companies really get into a profit sharing-type industry. Whereas with the regionals, the domestics, I think they're going to be a lot more successful, like the JetBlues, the Southwests, even the AirTrans. I think you're going to see that these smaller companies are going to have much more room for growth. They're not really into this hub-and-spoke-type mentality; they're able to expand quicker, get more engaged even into the smaller cities and really turn a profit.
TWST: What's driving the different trend for each?
Mr. Silver: You're seeing that the Deltas, the Uniteds, they're really concentrating on their international flights. They're cutting capacity domestically, and they're not making money on their domestic flights because of the drop in demand and because of the capital required for the international segment. They have this huge hub-and-spoke program with Delta basically in Atlanta; you have Continental in Newark. A lot of these larger airlines have these hubs around the country and then everything has to fly through there. So you're getting these extra flights that need to be utilized to get from point A to point B, whereas with the smaller, domestic, regional airlines, you're able to go direct from point A to point B. While you may have to pay a little more money for that individual flight, it costs the company less to operate that one flight than it would to go from a small town in North Carolina through Atlanta to then somewhere in Texas.
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