Compared to what other legacies are reporting as 4Q losses, $541 million seems like chump change. While any loss isn't good, I'm happy to see we're performing better than DL or UA, both with over $1 billion 4Q losses.
I suppose that would be true if you just looked at total dollars in the loss column. However, that is a fallacious comparison. AMR, DL, and UAL are much larger than LCC.
Also, you have to look at net losses vs. gross.
AMR had a gross loss of $340 million, but that included $103 million in one time charges related to unexpectedly high pilot retirements. Excluding all special items, the loss was only $214 million.
DL, did in fact have a gross loss of $1.4 billion. However, $900,000,000 of that was a one-time charge related to "employee equity distributions." I'm guessing stock options/distributions. In any case, their net loss was about $340 million.
UAL had $1.3 billion, but excluding special items (in their case, mostly being upside down in fuel hedges), their loss was $547 million.
Take those losses and divide by the number of available seats for sale on all their routes--i.e., loss per available seat mile--and I think all 3 would compare more than favorably with LCC's results. Or, as the financial analysts do, show the loss as dollars per share. The othere still come out pretty good.