WAV Travel News - Tuesday Edition
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Tom Harper files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy
As the trail of canceled trips and lost vacation money continued to grow over the last month, shuttered river cruise reseller Tom Harper River Journeys filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on June 5 in Massachusetts, folding and liquidating all assets.
The filing was entered by Tom Harper Cruises LLC, the company under which Newton, Mass.-based Tom Harper River Journeys operated. It states that the company’s estimated assets ranged from between $500,000 and $1 million and that its’ estimated liabilities were between $1 million and $10 million.
The filing also states that there will be no funds available to distribute to uninsured creditors.
It is signed by Bret Gordon, CEO of Tom Harper Cruises. Gordon’s attorney is Harold Murphy of Boston-based Murphy & King.
Travel agents and clients that had booked trips with Tom Harper River Journeys had been waiting for official word on what happened to the company and whether there would be any recourse for their lost trips and the money they paid to Tom Harper.
The Tom Harper River Journeys website recently shut down.
Tom Harper River Journeys was founded by Gordon in 2013 as a company that sold river cruise inventory on ships throughout Europe, Asia and Africa, including on vessels owned by Haimark Travel, CroisiEurope and the Zambezi Queen.
Airlines add Caribbean routes from U.S.
Carriers have added flights to their Caribbean summer schedules.
United introduced seasonal service on June 6 between Houston's Bush Intercontinntal and Providenciales, Turks and Caicos. The Saturday-only 737 flight will operate through Aug. 17.
The new flights complement United's eight weekly flights from Newark to Provo.
The carrier also launched two weekend seasonal flights between Houston and St. Thomas on June 6.
American Airlines began year-round service between Dallas/Fort Worth and Grand Cayman on June 6.
Cayman Airways now offers seasonal service between Dallas/Fort Worth and Grand Cayman. The Wednesday and Saturday roundtrip flights will run through Aug. 15.
American Airlines launched four weekly flights from Miami to Martinique on June 4. The flight operate Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays and will increase to six weekly flights on July 2.
Martinique also is served by Seaborne Airlines with three weekly flights from San Juan.
Advantage completes E-Z Rent-A-Car deal
Advantage Rent A Car has completed the acquisition of closely held E-Z Rent-A-Car for an undisclosed price. The companies announced the acquisition in February.
With E-Z Rent-A-Car, Advantage has a combined 85 locations and desks at all but three of the 25 largest U.S. airports.
Canadian private equity firm Catalyst Capital Group acquired Advantage out of bankruptcy last year from Franchise Services of North America (FSNA) for an undisclosed price.
The prior year, Hertz sold Advantage in order to comply with antitrust regulators' conditions for acquiring Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group.
Last year, Advantage generated about $200 million in U.S. revenue, about equal to Fox Rent A Car, according to Auto Rental News.
Hotel booking scams cost Americans up to $220 million per year
Hotel booking scams are on the rise partly because 1 in 3 vacations is set up online, with many hotel and airline reservations punched in on those tiny, hard-to-read smartphone screens.
Now a hotel trade group is asking Congress and the U.S. attorney general’s office to take action on the problem, which may be bilking 2.5 million travelers each year.
“If you book the room online you may not find out there is a problem until you show up at the front desk,” said Maryam Cope, vice president for government affairs at the American Hotel and Lodging Association.
In the most common scam, travelers will book on an online site that resembles a legitimate booking site, only to find out later that the site was bogus, Cope said. Bogus sites may resemble legitimate hotel sites, even adopting the logos and emblems of major hotel chains, she said. It may be hard to tell the difference on a tiny smartphone screen.
In some cases, the bogus website will take a commission but will fail to include special requests, such as a room with an extra cot or disabled guest access. In other cases, the bogus website will simply take a guest’s deposit and make no reservation at all.
Cope estimates that the scams are costing U.S. travelers more than $220 million a year.
“They are not getting cracked down on for this,” she said. “And until they do, they will continue to do it.”
On behalf of the hotel trade group, five members of Congress have written to the U.S. attorney general’s office, asking the Justice Department to spread the word about the scams.
“If the hotel booking site doesn’t look right, it probably isn’t,” she said. “If you suspect something, call the hotel directly.”
UNCOMFORTABLE AIRLINE SEATS ARE TRAVELERS’ TOP GRIPE
Several of the nation’s largest airlines have reported record profits for the first three months of the year, thanks in part to lower fuel costs, steady travel demand and the growing use of thin-cushion seats that allow carriers to squeeze more passengers into each plane.
Although airlines have proclaimed that the new seats are just as comfortable as traditional seats, travelers disagree.
In a survey released last week of 2,700 members of the travel website TripAdvisor, 65 percent of fliers who have tried the thin-cushion seats say they are less comfortable than other seats, 16 percent say the seats are more comfortable and 14 percent say they can’t tell the difference.
In fact, 77 percent of those surveyed named uncomfortable seats and limited legroom as their top travel gripe.
When TripAdvisor conducted a similar survey in 2011, only 26 percent of travelers named uncomfortable seats and tight legroom as their top complaint; passengers also groused about fees and rising airfares.
Jamaican Beaches To Get $2.2 Million Facelift
Some of Jamaica’s magnificent beaches will be even better by the end of the year. The country this week announced a $2.2 million project to provide new recreational facilities and amenities at public beaches used by tourists and residents.
The National Beach Development Programme, sponsored by Jamaica’s government through its Tourism Enhancement Fund, will equip beaches in parishes including Montego Bay, Negril, Trelawny, St. Elizabeth and St. Ann with children’s play areas; picnic seating and tables, gazebos, restrooms and changing rooms, plus lifeguard towers and parking facilities. In all, beaches in 14 parishes will receive enhancements.
“We want to make these as natural as possible so it does not take away from the beach and tropical feel,” said Clyde Harrison, TEF’s executive director. Harrison said concessionaires, plus soccer and beach volleyball courts are also planned at some beaches. Work is currently underway at Boston Beach in Portland, Norman Manley Beach in Negril and Providence Park Beach in Montego Bay.
The program is expected to be complete by December 2015. The beaches are designed to be self-sustaining said Harrison, with water sports and other activities provided at a cost to cover operational expenses.
IATA: Airlines To Make Even More Money Than Projected This Year
After record-setting profits in 2014, the airlines are in line for another incredible year according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA). The association announced this morning an upward revision of its 2015 industry outlook to a $29.3 billion net profit on expected revenues of $727 billion.
That would be a four percent net profit margin. The significant strengthening from a $16.4 billion net profit in 2014 (re-stated from $19.9 billion) reflects the net impact of several global factors, including stronger global economic prospects, record load factors, lower fuel prices, and a major appreciation of the U.S. dollar.
All regions are expected to see a profitability improvement in 2015 compared with 2014, but the IATA said there are differences in regional economies.
“The industry’s fortunes are far from uniform. Many airlines still face huge challenges,” said Tony Tyler, the IATA’s director general and CEO, in a statement.
Over half the global profit is expected to be generated by airlines based in North America ($15.7 billion).
For North American airlines, the margin on earnings before interest and taxation (EBIT) is expected to exceed 12 percent, more than double that of the next best performing regions of Asia-Pacific and Europe.
“For the airline business, 2015 is turning out to be a positive year,” Tyler said. “Since the tragic events of September 2001, the global airline industry has transformed itself with major gains in efficiency. This is clearly evident in the expected record high passenger load factor of 80.2 percent for this year. The result is a hard-earned 4 percent average net profit margin. On average, airlines will retain $8.27 for every passenger carried.”
The IATA also noted expected return on invested capital (ROIC) will be 7.5 percent. For the first time, the industry-level average ROIC will be in excess of its cost of capital, which has fallen to 6.8 percent largely due to lower bond yields. This industry average is, however, dominated by airlines in the United States, which have benefited the most from the fall in U.S. dollar-denominated fuel prices, a strong local economy, and industry restructuring. The average non-U.S. airline is still struggling with returns below the cost of capital and a significant debt burden.
American Joins Delta in Cutting Revenue Forecast as Demand Slips
American Airlines Group Inc. joined Delta Air Lines Inc. in saying its benchmark revenue gauge will decline more than forecast as domestic demand decreases.
Passenger revenue from each seat flown a mile probably will fall in a range of 6 percent to 8 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, American said in a statement Tuesday. The airline’s previous outlook called for a drop of 4 percent to 6 percent.
American’s pullback may reinforce investor concern that the domestic market is weakening after being a bright spot for the U.S. industry. The Bloomberg U.S. Airlines Index slid 17 percent this year through Monday, and analysts including UBS AG’s Darryl Genovesi predict the biggest carriers will slow growth in their supply of U.S. seats, giving themselves more pricing power.
American is reviewing winter capacity plans and expects to disclose details when second-quarter financial results are reported next month, Chief Financial Officer Derek Kerr said on June 3.
Delta said last week that second-quarter revenue based on the same measurement as American’s forecast will drop in a range of 4 percent to 5 percent, outstripping an earlier projection for a decrease of 2 percent to 4 percent. The so-called unit revenue was being hurt by a drop in domestic yields, or average fare per mile, Delta said.
Delta and United Continental Holdings Inc. indicated last week that they may offer fewer seats later this year amid concern that the oversupply is pressuring fares. Delta said it is reviewing domestic seating capacity for after summer with a “bias” toward a reduction. United said at the same event that it is looking “very closely” at its available seats for the winter season.
Profit Margins
United tightened its second-quarter unit forecast on Monday, saying in a statement it now expected a decline of 5 percent to 6 percent. The company’s previous outlook was for a drop of 4 percent to 6 percent.
American also trimmed its forecast for second-quarter pretax profit margins on Tuesday, giving a range of 16 percent and 18 percent, compared with 17 percent to 19 percent previously. Last month, the Fort Worth, Texas-based carrier cut its pretax margin forecast to 17 percent to 19 percent.
Barcelona Mayor-Elect: Tourists Are Ruining Our City
While Barcelona benefits immensely from booming tourism, not everyone is thrilled that the popular European destination has become the continents third-most visited behind London and Paris.
According to Carol Matlack of Bloomberg Business, you can add Barcelona Mayor-elect Ada Colau Ballano to that list.
Ballano is concered that the surge in tourists is negatively impacting the quality of life for the city's 1.7 million residents, some of whom are complaining about litter, noise and rising real estate prices.
On the flip side, nearly $14 billion in annual visitor spending supports an estimated 100,000 jobs in Barcelona.
Barcelona officials have already put policies into effect designed to lessen the impact felt by the 7.6 million people expected to visit the city in 2015. Recently, Barcelona imposed hour restrictions at the La Boquería Market to curb tourists.
Other local attractions with imposed time restrictions include the La Sagrada Familia Cathedral and Parc Guell.
But Ballano could potentially take the efforts a step further.
"Such actions might include curbs on cruise-ship arrivals, tougher regulation of short-term apartment rentals, and restrictions on retail activity—for example, banning souvenir sales inside La Boqueria market," writes Matlack.
For perspective, Barcelona's cruise-ship port is the largest in Europe and hosts more than 2.5 million passengers each year.
Meanwhile, Ballano has said that she plans to limit the number of new hotel rooms and short-term rentals in Barcelona moving forward. And she took a dig at a classic tourist spot in the process.
"If we don’t want to end up like Venice, we will have to put some kind of limit in Barcelona," she told the newspaper El Pais. Venice's population has fallen by two-thirds over the last 50 years, going from 180,000 in the 1960s to 60,000 today, as the number of tourists continues to rise over 2 million per year.
"We need to create a tourism plan thinking about local residents," she said.
Nonetheless, it remains to be seen what proposed policies will come to fruition and whether they will have the desired impact.
"You can't remove tourism. You can't build another Sagrada Familia and put it somewhere else." said NHTV Breda University professor and Barcelona tourism expert Greg Richards via Matlack. "People who are bothered by having hordes of tourists around will probably move away to other neighborhoods."
Small-town airports close as fewer pilots take to skies
Small-town airports close as higher plane costs, falling interest lead to pilot decline
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- For the first time in 60 years, airplanes won't be roaring down the runway at the airstrip in Onawa, Iowa, this summer. Racing dragsters will.
Like many small cities across the country, Onawa is closing its airfield largely because of the steady decline in the number of pilots, especially in rural areas. After June 30, dragsters will be using the 3,400-foot-long concrete runway.
"It was a very hard decision for our council, but they decided, it's just not working," said Bradley Hanson, administrator of the western Iowa city, tucked between the Missouri River and scenic Loess Hills.
Many small towns have had airfields almost since the early barnstorming days and expanded them after World War II when military pilots returned home, ready to resume work but eager to keep flying. The number of pilots with private certificates peaked at 357,000 in 1980.
Since then, though, that number has nose-dived to 188,000, and hundreds of local airfields have been closing.
Interest has waned as planes became much more costly. New small planes that cost about $13,000 in the late 1960s now go for $250,000 or more, and owners also must pay more for specialized aviation fuel, liability insurance, maintenance and hangar space.
So few planes touched down at the airport in nearby Hartley, Iowa, that the small community tore up its runway in 2010 and leased it to a farmer who now grows corn on the 80 acres.
"Nobody was buying airplanes, so when the runway and hangers needed work, they decided to do away with it," said Howard Orchard, the town's unofficial historian.
Likewise, officials in the 6,000 person city of Hillsboro, Illinois, also found a more profitable use for their rarely used airfield. They sold it to a company mining coal.
"It was a hard pill to swallow for me to tell these guys we had to do away with it," said Bill Baran, the mayor at the time, who broke the bad news to local flyers. Dozens of pilots had once used the field, but only two planes were still based there when officials agreed to sell it in 2008.
The pilot decline comes even as commercial aviation is drawing more passengers, with the industry expecting to see a record number of travelers this summer.
That success has come with a price, though, as the once-flashy image of flying has been tarnished by hectic airports, packed commercial jets and frequent delays. For many people, there remains little glamour in flying.
"Air travel is not nearly as interesting as it used to be," said Tom Haines, a pilot since 1977 and editor with the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.
At many small, rural airfields, where decades ago farmers, small-business owners and blue collar workers joined flying clubs and gathered for family barbecues amid the roar of planes, it now can be pretty quiet.
While some general aviation airports in urban areas remain busy, others have "a little of a ghost town feel," said Haines.
At Martin Field in South Sioux City, Nebraska, owner Gene Martin recalls when teenagers would bike out to the airfield and pay for flight lessons with money they earned from paper routes. Now, young people seem more interested in video games, Martin said.
The number of flight instructors at his field has fallen from 12 to three, and they're not especially busy, he said.
Still, he's turned down offers to sell his 130 acres to housing developers.
"We're trying to hang in there," said Martin, whose grandfather started the airfield in the 1930s.
With the number of public airports having dropped from 5,589 in 1990 to 5,155 in 2013, pilots have more trouble finding places to keep their planes.
When the Onawa airport closes, pilot Ed Weiner will move his airplane to a city 25 miles away. If properly developed, he believes the airfield would provide more economic benefit to the town than the drag strip will.
Weiner, 70, says more people would fly small planes if they knew what the experience was like.
"If you've never had it, you'll never miss it," he said. "It's like trying to describe the taste of chocolate cake."
Smoke in cabin forces emergency landing for Allegiant Air
Cabin smoke forces emergency plane landing in Florida; Allegiant Air flight heads to Maryland
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) -- Passengers on an Allegiant Air plane that made an emergency landing minutes after taking off from St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport will soon be heading to their original destination in Maryland.
Authorities say smoke appeared in the cabin of flight 864 about eight minutes after takeoff Monday afternoon. The plane landed 24 minutes after takeoff. Passengers evacuated on emergency slides. The flight to Maryland's Hagerstown Regional Airport was rescheduled for Tuesday.
The Tampa Bay Times (http://bit.ly/1cIwclH ) reports that three passengers and one flight attendant had reported injuries to Nevada-based Allegiant by Monday night. Allegiant says it had no reports of anyone going to the hospital.
The 141 passengers will receive vouchers for $200 and a full refund for the flight. The airline said it would provide hotel rooms for passengers who don't live in the area.
(WAV: Yes, indeed, this is a travel news story.)
The gay-wedding industry goes mainstream
When Kathryn Hamm 10 years ago started running GayWeddings.com, a “mother-approved shopping site” for same-sex brides and grooms, chats with wedding planners, caterers and invitation-makers often devolved into awkward detentes.
“It felt like begging, trying to convince them that same-sex couples wanted to have a ceremony, that they were an unserved market,” Hamm said. “Our litmus test was just if they were going to hang up on me.”
But amid rapid changes in America’s gay-marriage laws, Hamm’s small niche of a site has quickly become anything but. In four years, the number of vendors who told the site they were willing to help wed same-sex couples has exploded, from 20,000 to 120,000. On Tuesday, the site unveiled that it would be bought by WeddingWire, a Yelp-style online rating giant for the $50 billion U.S. marriage-industrial complex.
As same-sex marriages have surged into the mainstream, so too has the gay-wedding industry, now serving one of the matrimonial world’s biggest growing markets as a financial force all its own. Same-sex weddings could become a $2.5 billion industry if legalized nationwide, an analysis by finance data site Nerdwallet shows.
Where once the ceremonies were welcome rarities, they have become an increasingly expected, and important, part of businesses’ bottom lines. Even in states like Indiana, where a bakery this year made headlines for refusing to serve cake at a gay wedding, vendors have fought to capitalize on same-sex couples’ special days.
“My florists are used more. My linen vendors are used more. My event spaces are used more,” said Stephanie Rice, a social catering sales manager at the Conrad Indianapolis, a downtown hotel and wedding venue. “That’s more money. Who doesn’t like money?”
The growing social norm of gay marriage has made it harder for the competitive small businesses and entrepreneurs of America’s wedding industry to stay away. About 61 percent of Americans told a Washington Post/ABC News poll in April that they support gay marriage, an act now permitted in 37 states and Washington, D.C. This month, the Supreme Court is expected to make a decision that could legalize same-sex marriages nationwide.
Severe TB case triggers hunt for possible victims
A woman with a severe form of tuberculosis was being treated at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland while health officials were tracking down people who may have been in contact with her, health officials said.
The woman was admitted to NIH's hospital in Bethesda on Friday with "extensively drug-resistant" form of the disease, the NIH said in a statement.
"The patient is staying in an isolation room in the NIH Clinical Center specifically designed for handling patients with respiratory infections," NIH said.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the NIH, is providing treatment for the patient. NIAID has treated other so-called XDR-TB patients in the past, NIH said .
"NIH is taking every precaution to ensure the safety of all concerned, and the situation is of minimal risk to other Clinical Center patients, NIH staff, and the public," the statement said.
CDC spokesman Tom Skinner told nbcwashington.com that health officials in Illinois are working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to find people with whom the woman may have had prolonged direct contact.
The woman, who flew from India to Chicago in April, was in stable condition, The New York Times reported. After arriving in Chicago, the woman traveled to Missouri and Tennessee before returning to Chicago, where she sought treatment at a hospital about seven weeks after she arrived in the U.S., the Times said.
The hospital diagnosed drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR-TB, and the woman was transported Friday by special air and ground ambulances to NIH.
TB is normally is not easily spread but can be hard to treat. It is a potentially serious infectious disease that mainly affects the lungs. The bacteria that cause tuberculosis move between people through tiny droplets released into the air via coughs and sneezes.
Once rare in developed countries, TB infections began increasing in 1985 with the emergence of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. HIV weakens the immune system, making it susceptible to TB germs. In the United States, tuberculosis began to decrease again in 1993. Globally however, more than 1 million die from TB each year.
Boeing plans to add more seats by shrinking the size of plane's bathroom
Airplane bathrooms and some London hotel rooms might be the only places where you can sit on a toilet, touch two walls with your kneecaps and wash your hands at the same time. But those onboard lavatories – which are currently about as spacious as a birdbath – are about to get even smaller.
The engineers at Boeing (who are possibly sadistic but definitely not incontinent) have discovered that by shrinking the size of the lavatories, they can fit as many as 14 additional seats onto the newest 777-300ER. Well, as cramped and uncomfortable as that sounds – in every way – at least Boeing isn’t taking the easyJet-and-Airbus route and removing a bathroom entirely.
Boeing is making a number of upgrades, reconfigurations and enhancements to the 777-300ER before delivering the first order to United Airlines next year. And once those 777-300ERs are added to various carriers’ fleets, it will begin constructing its upgraded 777X line. In addition to stealing some square footage from the bathrooms, the engineers re-hung the overhead bins in a new way that lightened the plane’s overall weight by 1,200 pounds. According to Bloomberg, the interior reconfiguration, along with enhancements to the engines and the wings, could improve the plane’s fuel economy by up to 5%.
The 777-300ER currently seats up to 386 passengers, making it the largest member of the 777 family, at least until the 777X is in production (it is predicted to arrive in 2020).
(WAV: You just could not make this up.)
Man Changes Name to Adam West to Avoid Airline Fees
Dealing with airlines and the fees associated with changing information about your flight can be a daunting experience, but one English man is getting one over on the system by legally changing his name instead of paying a $336 fee.
According to Harriet Meyer of The Guardian, 19-year-old Adam Armstrong from Manchester, England, had received a ticket on Ryanair airlines form his girlfriend's stepfather, who thought his name was Adam West.
Armstrong used the name Adam West on Facebook as a joke—that being the name of the actor who played Batman on the 1960s TV series—and the plane ticket his girlfriend's stepfather bought him had the fake name on it instead of his real name.
After discovering the error, Armstrong went to Ryanair and addressed the mistake. Unfortunately, the airline would only fix the issue if he were to pay the stunning $336 fee (£220) to make the necessary changes. Instead, the 19-year-old man changed his name for free and bought a new passport for $158 (£103.)
Armstrong—or West as he is known now—spoke to The Guardian about the situation:
“Ryanair were not helpful at all. We showed them we were not trying to change the person, just the name, but they wouldn’t back down. Ryanair pride themselves on being a customer-centric business, it just seems like a joke when they wouldn’t change the name. I just thought it was completely ridiculous. All they needed to do was hit the backspace key on a keyboard and they want to charge me £220?”
Ryanair claims that the company charges such outlandish fees to ensure that people do not buy the tickets at a discounted price and re-sell them. Armstrong was charged double due to the fact that the ticket was round trip and it was on the same booking as his girlfriend.
While the stunt saved the teenager money on his plane tickets, his father was reportedly upset at the name change, but Armstrong insists that he will change his name back in seven years when the current passport expires.
UAE to rival Orlando as theme park Mecca
As US airlines feel the heat of intense rivalry from the Gulf region, Orlando also has serious competition from the UAE for its crown as the world's premier theme park destination.
A report by PWc says Dubai and Abu Dhabi could overtake Central Florida "if it takes a holistic approach to exploit its unique geographical location, high quality attractions and investment in infrastructure".
The report says it has the necessary infrastructure and a range of hospitality options to support huge theme park expansion to give Orlando, which is home to Disney World, SeaWorld, Universal Studios and Legoland, a run for its money.
"The UAE already rivals Orlando in the scale of its transport links, lodging and food and beverage sectors and its central global location - within a four hour flight of three billion people, is unrivalled," it said.
Abu Dhabi has two established parks - Ferrari World and Yas Waterworld, while phase one of the Dubai Parks and Resorts complex, which features the Motiongate, Legoland and Bollywood parks, is due to open in 2016.
Dubai's IMG Worlds of Adventure is also currently being developed.
"The country has recognized that it needs to continue investment and focus on the quality of attractions, as well as appealing to a diverse visitor base from across the world," said Philip Shepherd, partner, PwC Middle East Hospitality & Leisure Leader.
The report projects the theme park market in the UAE could double to 45 million by 2021, of which 30 million will come from international visitors.
Caribbean tourism still going strong
Caribbean tourism is on a roll, with the region recording a 6% increase for the first quarter of 2015, according to a Caribbean Tourism Organization report.
"The outlook for the remainder of the year is positive," said Barbados Tourism Minister and the current CTO chair Richard Sealy, adding that the increase is the 17th consecutive quarter of growth for the region.
Nearly eight million visitors came to the Caribbean, setting a first quarter record for room occupancy at 77.8%.
Top performers were Cuba and the Dominican Republic with the biggest growth rate for the first quarter.
Sealy added that Caribbean nations shouldn't view the emergence of Cuba tourism as a threat.
"We are not afraid of what is happening in Cuba. If any of our members can attract people to the region, it is good for the region as a whole."
The average daily rate for the entire Caribbean region was $239.84 and revenue per available room was$188.25, the CTO said.
The region is on course to surpass the 2014 total of 26.3 million visitor arrivals which was a 5% jump from the previous year.
United jet skids off runway in high winds
Investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are at Buffalo Niagara Airport after a United Express plane skidded off the runway late Sunday, thought to have been caused by a strong gust of wind as it touched down.
United Express Flight 3796 skidded about 300 feet off the tarmac and onto the grass in what was described as a frightening incident, but none of the 69 passengers 4 crew members were hurt.
The pilot initially said strong winds had blown the CRJ 700 jet off the runway which had flown from Washington DC.
The plane encountered 'some high winds and went past the runway a little bit," United spokeswoman Jennifer Dohm said
Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority spokesman C. Douglas Hartmayer said a team from the airport's crash fire rescue helped passengers off the plane who were then bussed to the airport terminal.
Hartmayer said the airport will be operating as normal on Monday.
It follows a similar incident Friday when a Westjet 737 plane skidded off the runway at Montreal.
Transportation Safety Board of Canada officials are still investigating the cause of that incident.
Uber Spends Heavily to Establish Itself in China
HONG KONG — Uber is spending money at a breakneck rate to crack the China market — even paying its drivers more than the fares they collect.
Fat with almost $6 billion in venture capital, Uber, based in San Francisco, is doling out bonuses up to three times the amount of its fares, in a bet that its exceptional rise in the United States can be matched in China.
So far, its strategy is working, shattering prevailing assumptions that young American tech companies cannot compete against local rivals.
The spending spree has attracted droves of drivers like Jacky, a systems analyst at an international telecommunications company, who recently began moonlighting for Uber with his Ford Fiesta in Shanghai. In late May, Uber said it had created more than 60,000 jobs in China over the past month, with the spread of its service spurring protests from some taxi drivers.
“This is a really great opportunity for me to make some extra money,” said Jacky, 34, who declined to give his full name because he was releasing internal information about Uber.
Though other ride-hailing services also offer driver bonuses, Jacky said Uber pays the most. In the first three weeks of May, he said, he made the equivalent of about $1,000 from Uber — or almost half of his $2,100 monthly salary at the telecommunications company — with the majority of his earnings as a driver coming from the subsidies.
While China represents huge scale as a market, it has fended off the entry of just about every major Western technology start-up. Uber, a five-year-old company that operates in more than 310 cities and 58 countries worldwide, faces homegrown Chinese rivals like Didi Kuaidi, which has more than 90 percent of the market and is backed by two of the largest Chinese Internet companies, Alibaba and Tencent. It may also have to grapple with a fickle central government that could shut it out of the market overnight.
Yet more affluent and cosmopolitan Chinese have flocked to Uber’s service, attracted by fares that are on average at least 35 percent cheaper than taxis, with the cars generally more luxurious than cabs and drivers who offer free water and are typically more polite.
Uber is providing more than 100,000 rides a day in China, according to two people with knowledge of the company’s internal metrics, who declined to be identified because the numbers are confidential. That is about 10 percent of the total one million rides a day that Uber said it was getting companywide in December.
In the central Chinese city of Chengdu alone, Uber has attracted 20,000 drivers since 2014, compared with 26,000 in New York City who have come aboard since 2011. Travis Kalanick, Uber’s chief executive, is teaming up with the Chinese Internet giant Baidu and making multiple visits to the country, including one last month to the provincial capital of Guiyang in the southwest.
“Uber is doing quite well in the first-tier cities, and it’s a bit of a surprise,” said You Na, an analyst at ICBC International based in Hong Kong. “The subsidies make a big difference.”
An Uber spokeswoman declined to comment on the scale of the company’s business in China. Uber is in talks with investors to raise another $1.5 billion or so in a financing that would value it at $50 billion.
Uber still faces many hurdles in China, where the market is highly competitive, regulated and, at times, eccentric. Chinese tend to favor Chinese-branded services, said Mark Natkin, founder of the research firm Marbridge Consulting in Beijing, though sometimes using a globally leading brand — like Uber — has cachet.
Uber has attracted Chinese customers like Li Yufang, 28, a Beijing resident and an employee at a property developer, who switched to Uber in January from other ride-hailing services.
“The reason I love Uber is because the price is really low compared with taxis or private limos,” Ms. Li said.
On Chinese social media, jokes that Uber provides a convenient, self-selecting pool of potential husbands for single women have even made the rounds.
Uber began tests in China in late 2013 in the southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, focusing on a service that would let people hail rides from licensed limousine companies. Instead of following other Western tech firms, which at times have relied on foreign managers with little knowledge of China, Uber hired and empowered local people to act as managers to run city operations as they saw fit. It now operates in nine Chinese cities.
The company also took a more cautious, cooperative approach in China, unlike in other countries, where it has brazenly flouted authorities. In December, Uber sold a stake in itself to Baidu and began working to offer its service directly on Baidu’s popular maps application. Uber recently earned praise from the head of a major Chinese Internet industry group for behaving more like a Chinese company than like an eBay or an Amazon.
In October, however, Uber expanded a new service that put it on questionable regulatory footing in the country. The service, playfully called People’s Uber after the Marxist language favored by the Communist Party, resembles what Uber does elsewhere by letting private drivers register and shuttle passengers for pay. The service runs counter to what is offered by companies like Didi Kuaidi, which either enable customers to hail taxis directly or use contracts with private limo companies to offer high-end cars at luxury prices.
It also drew scrutiny from local governments since the drivers are unlicensed. In the last two months, local authorities in Chengdu and Guangzhou have raided Uber offices in response to the questionable legality of People’s Uber.
Local traffic authorities in Guangzhou and Chengdu did not respond to requests for comment. At the time of the raids, Uber said it was cooperating with officials. People’s Uber is still operating in both cities.
The raids have spurred driver protests. In Chengdu last month, hundreds of Uber drivers lashed out at the local traffic police after one driver’s car was impounded.
People’s Uber has also prompted a battle with Didi Kuaidi, which last month started its own service for private drivers, called Kuaiche. A few weeks later, Didi Kuaidi announced an initiative to spend 1 billion renminbi ($160 million) subsidizing the program in the form of discounts to passengers and driver incentives.
“We welcome all good competition,” said Jean Liu, Didi Kuaidi’s president, at a May 22 media briefing. “This is our home market; we love this market so much, we want to make sure it grows in a healthy, sustainable, safe way.”
The inducements from both sides are stirring resentment from taxi drivers, similar to what Uber has faced in other countries. In recent weeks, cabdrivers in Tianjin have lashed out at private car drivers.
One woman, whose husband and father-in-law share a taxi in Tianjin, confirmed the protests but declined to be named. She said the popularity of services like Uber has cut what taxi drivers can make during the day by about a third.
Another problem for Uber may be its own drivers. On Taobao, Alibaba’s e-commerce site, vendors run a thriving black market for driver accounts, allowing purchasers to circumvent Uber’s background checks. Jacky also confirmed reports in local news media that many drivers log fraudulent Uber rides using fake passenger accounts to get some of the bonuses the company is offering.
Uber isn’t deterred.