To the surprise of no one, United Airlines wound up mired in red ink when it reported its second-quarter financials on Tuesday. Putting aside some $2.6 billion in special accounting charges, the Chicago-based carrier lost $151 million, or $1.19 a share. That compares to year-earlier earnings of $274 million, or $1.83 a share. Revenue rose 3 percent to $5.37 billion.

Also to no one's surprise, in a conference call with analysts, United executives largely blamed the giant shift in fortunes to the fast-rising cost of fuel. Though the carrier's second quarter losses were substantial, investors responded favorably.

United stock gained $3.42, or a whopping 68.5 percent, to close at $8.41 -- an increase no doubt prompted more by the continued drop in oil prices than by anything overly encouraging in United's second quarter financial report. (Light, sweet crude for August delivery fell $3.09 to settle at $127.95; it fell as low as $125.63 in earlier trading.)

But United clearly was prepared to counter its downbeat financial news with a vast laundry list of initiatives it is undertaking to put the carrier back in the black. For one thing, it said it would free up cash under a new credit-card agreement with JPMorgan Chase & Co. To no one's surprise, though, the operative word in that list is "cuts." Cuts in capacity, operating costs and staff, among other things.

United said it will cut at least 7,000 more employees by the end of 2009 -- some 1,500 salaried and management staff (previously announced) and 5,500 from the ranks of pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and customer service agents. The carrier had about 52,500 workers as of March 31.

By the time United Chief Financial Officer Jake Brace and Chief Operating Officer John Tague -- a veteran airline guy who clearly has been charged by Chairman and CEO Glenn Tilton (an oil man) with the daunting task of turning around United's fortunes -- had run through all the ways United is cutting things out of the company, there was good reason to wonder how much of a company will be left. To say nothing of how well it can execute with vastly fewer resources.