.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} Dear Mr. Berko:

B.E., Port Charlotte, Fla.

Dear B.E.:

Perhaps one of the worst reasons to purchase a stock is because several of the major member firms of the New York Stock Exchange upgrade the shares. It’s not unthinkable that the big boys would sell into their recommendations. Those guys are always out to feather their own nests.

Years ago, before the war in Iraq, before the tech bubble, when the dollar was figuratively worth its weight in gold, Trans World Airlines’ stock symbol on the New York Stock Exchange was TWA. Its service and scheduling were so bad that travelers suggested TWA was an abbreviation for Try Walking Across.

The New York Stock Exchange symbol for US Airways Group Inc. is LCC, and former White Weld analyst Mingo Jones Jr. told me that’s short for Lousy Common Carrier. LCC’s arrival and departure times are wild guesses at best, and by the time your luggage arrives on the carousel, you could have had a drink, a steak dinner and dessert.

LCC’s stock price has crashed more than 60 percent since its January high of $62 while the prices of other common carriers have fallen about 25 percent. High fuel costs have impaired the company’s earnings as well as the earnings of its competitors. Still, LCC should earn about $5.60 per share in 2007, and if the company doesn’t implode, earnings in 2008 are projected to come in between $4.30 and $4.60 a share.

But those earnings are not the reason that JP Morgan, UBS, Merrill and Goldman Sachs have upgraded their recommendations on the stock. They believe that its drastic drop in market value makes the company an attractive marriage partner. They believe LCC is worth $42 to $46 a share.

But I wouldn’t go within 100 yards of this stock even if I were wearing a biohazard suit. There’s something pathetically and pathologically wrong with this airline, which is “gate-late” about 70 percent of the time. LCC’s aging and fuel-guzzling fleet should be decommissioned and parked in Arizona’s Sonora Desert airplane graveyard. And at least 57 percent of LCC’s intentionally slothful employees, including management, ought to be terminated and given applications for positions at Burger King.

Even after its silly merger with America West Airlines, which resulted, supposedly, in $800 million of operating improvements, unit costs at LCC still greatly exceed those of other carriers. In fact, the merger will result in a substantial increase in labor costs thanks to union contracts. Management’s ridiculous new proposal for pilots will cost an additional $125 million, almost 25 percent of last year’s operating profits.

The company’s new reservation system is the Mother of All Failures. Web site glitches, huge goofs in its frequent-flier program, terribly confusing data-entry instructions and check-in complications are just a few of US Airways’ reservation problems. And not even heaven can help you if you need employee assistance at an LCC airport reservation counter.

Earlier this year, Delta Air Lines’ management considered a merger with LCC partly because of US Airways’ impressive and attractive nationwide route system. However, Delta – sensing that LCC’s stick-house infrastructure could implode as it has several times in the past – got smart and passed. I suggest that you do the same.

Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 1416, Boca Raton, Fla. 33429 or e-mail him at malber@adelphia.net.© Copley News Service