I put together a side by side comparison of the Q2 financial results for the 6 largest US carriers. There are a lot of interesting items that immediately stand out when looking at this comparison. A few of thes items include:

1.) AA's labor costs (no surpise, but this puts it into perspective):
DL's labor cost in Q2 was roughly equal to AA's, but DL generated 44% more revenue. Looking at it another way, UA and AA has similar revenues, but UA's labor cost was lower by $700 million.

2.) Southwest labor costs:
Southwest no longer has the same labor cost advantage that it once used to. In fact, their labor cost now exceeds US and CO.

3.) US Airways Q2 results:
As much bad publicity as US Airways receives, it had a very good quarter. In fact, they did a very good job managing their fuel expenses. US had the same revenues as WN but 1/3 less fuel expenses.

4.) Cash Flows:
Operating cash flow for all airlines was positive for the first 6 months. UA's net financing cash flows were positive due to the issuance of $2 billion in debt. DL's net financing cash flows were negative due to $1.6 billion in repayment of long term debt.

$ in Millions AA DL UA CO US WN
INCOME STATEMENT
Revenues 5,674 8,168 5,161 3,708 3,171 3,168

Expenses
Labor 1,714 1,702 1,020 822 573 946
Fuel 1,655 1,960 1,198 968 616 933
Other 2,109 3,654 2,509 1,590 1,611 926
Total Expenses 5,478 7,316 4,727 3,380 2,800 2,805

Operating Profit 196 852 434 328 371 363
Net profit (11) 467 273 233 279 112

CASH FLOWS*
Operating 1,173 2,000 1,356 1,001 739 540
Financing (1,374) (1,618) 603 (166) (133) (51)
Investing 245 (555) (95) (334) (91) (610)
Net change in cash 44 (173) 1,864 501 515 (121)

* Income statement for Q2-10
** Cash flow for 6 month period ending June 30th 2010

Source: 10Q's

[Edited 2010-08-01 15:30:37]