UODATE: This is an important development for all who travel to Philadelphia and use the Convention Center: Longtime convention bureau president Tom Muldoon is to retire at the end of next  year, and a replacement, executive vice president Jack Ferguson, will relplace him. Read more here. and the short article posted early Friday, and a longer piece that appeared in The Inquirer over the weekend.

UPDATE: This post includes fresh information from Friday, in addition to what we had yesterday.

Southwest Airlines was the first off the blocks to report third-quarter earnings on Thursday The company had a net loss due to the cost of fuel hedges and an early retirement program. Without those items, Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said the airline would have made $23 million. Read the basics in this story.

A broader look at how analysts expected Southwest and other airlines to do was in a story by airline reporter Linda Loyd yesterday morning. Read more ....  In Friday's paper, Linda reported on Southwest in more detail 

And another reporter used some different information from the Southwest conference call related to its frequent-flier program. Read that one here.

The Federal Aviation Adminstration today proposed mutli-million-dollar fines for US Airways and United Airlines for safety violations related to aircraft maintenance. Read the basics in a brief AP story here. UPDATE; The Inquirer's longer Thursday morning story is here. 

Here is the essence of US Airways's response, in a message to employees from chief operating officer Robert Isom: The propsed penalty relates to efforts to integrate maitenance for its America West and US Airwas fleets. The integration  "presented some challenges in the ares of inspection and records during 2007, 2008 and early 2009," Isom said. "Our team has worked cooperatively with the FAA to investigate and correct any discrepancies to the FAA's satisfaction."

The founder of FlyerRights.org, the group pushing the hardest to get Congress to pass don't-strand-me-on-the tarmac legislation, alleged in a federal lawsuit that Delta conspired with a Virginia company to hack into her e-mails to try to derail her efforts. Read more here.

UPDATE: Southwest Airlines is expected by analysts to report a small third-quarter loss tomorrow. Here's a report from the AP that came in Wednesday evening. The rest of this entry was posted on Wednesday afternoon.

It's inherently unfair to report what one airline is doing that may affect customers without being able to say if other airlines are doing the same thing. That said, here goes anyway: Southwest announced its May-March 2010 flight schedule today, and it includes trimming three PHL flights and adding one. It's eliminating its one PHL-Austin, Tex., nonstop flight, and taking its PHL to Manchester and Providence schedules from five a day to four. One additional flight, PHL-Tampa, will be added.

In total, Southwest is adding 62 weekday flights and eliminating 10, for a net gain of 52. By that measure, PHL doesn't seem to be doing as well as a market for the airline as some of its others. Much of the increase in this schedule is focused on Baltimore and Chicago Midway, two of its largest "focus cities" (hubs to other carriers). 

If I could tell you what other airlines have done to their PHL schedules in this time of deep cuts in capacity I would. But Southwest -- different in so many ways from competitors -- is the only carrier that regularly informs me through its e-mailed press releases how its schedules are changing. Airlines always trumpet  new routes from PHL but we don't always know when a route is abandoned or the schedule cut back. If the other airlines would do as Southwest does, I would let you know.

Another Southwest note: The airline received complaints this summer from its frequent fliers (including at least one reader of this blog) on the schedules on its PHL-Pittsburgh route, and -- lo and behold! --- Southwest responded. As part of earlier capacity cuts, the airline had eliminated an early morning PHL-PIT flight, leaving the first one of the day a post-9 a.m. departure. Now it's put a flight just after 7 a.m. back on the route. Thanks to Steve and all the others who complained, and thanks to Southwest for listening to its best customers.