Did you see those big, bold headlines (on CNN and elsewhere) talking about Delta’s “whopping” losses? Most of them were along these lines: “Delta Reports $6.39B Quarterly Loss”.

$6.39 billion! But, wait. The “realoperating”loss is just…$274 million. Substantial, yes, but nowhere near billions. The other $6.1 billion or so “paper loss”is the “drop” in their expected stock price after coming out of bankruptcy (called a special item – I would say a very special item).

A quick review of the airlines 1^st quarter losses of 2008 (and, Southwest’s profits):

• Southwest Airlines – $34 million profit
• AMR (American Airlines) – $328 million loss
• Continental Airlines – $85 million loss
• UAL (United Airlines) – $542 million loss
• AirTran – $34.8 million loss
• JetBlue – $8 million loss
• Delta Air Lines – $274 million loss
• Northwest – $191 million loss

Reminds me of the screaming headlines from last month that claimed Southwest was supposedly flying unsafe planes. They weren’t. But the headlines garnered a lot of attention, which apparently was all that mattered.