WAV Travel News - Tuesday Edition
Bill Vervaeke, CDME
West Palm Beach, FL 33411
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Norwegian Air launches Las Vegas, Caribbean flights
COPENHAGEN, April 21 (Reuters) - Budget airline Norwegian Air Shuttle will launch new long-haul flights to Las Vegas, Puerto Rico and Saint Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands later this year, the company said on Tuesday.
The company will fly routes from Scandinavia and London.
Europe's third-biggest low cost carrier after Ryanair and easyJet has rapidly expanded into the long-haul business including the London to New York route, one of the most competitive routes in the world.
American couple jailed for Bali suitcase murder
An American couple were jailed by an Indonesian court Tuesday after being convicted of murdering the woman's mother. Her body was found inside a suitcase.
The Denpasar District Court found Tommy Schaefer, 21, guilty of beating socialite Sheila von Wiese-Mack, 62, to death in a hotel room on the island of Bali on Aug. 12 and sentenced him to 18 years in jail, the Associated Press reported.
Heather Mack, 19, Schaefer's girlfriend and von Wiese-Mack's daughter, was convicted of helping him and she was sentenced to 10 years in jail following a trial in the same court.
The case generated headlines around the world after von Wiese-Mack's body was found stuffed in a suitcase outside the St. Regis Hotel, where the three, all from Chicago, were staying.
"Taking into account Chapter 340 of the criminal code and other related laws, (the panel) declared that the defendant Tommy Schaefer has been legally and convincingly guilty of committing premeditated murder," said Judge Made Suweda, reading the verdict aloud in court, the AP reported.
During his trial, Schaefer said von Wiese-Mack was angry when she found out her daughter was pregnant, and tried to strangle him, leading him to hit her with a metal fruit bowl.
Prosecutors said Mack sat on the suitcase containing her mother's body to allow Schaefer to close it. The couple put the suitcase in the trunk of a taxi outside the hotel and told the driver they were going to check out and would return, but never did, prosecutors said, according to the AP.
The judge described Schaefer's actions as sadistic, but said his politeness and an expression of remorse meant he did not get a heavier sentence. The court decided to be lenient toward Mack because she recently gave birth.
Mack gave birth last month in a hospital near the jail where she and Schaefer were being held, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The paper said that Mack had feared the baby would be born in prison because she did not have the funds for a partial down payment to the hospital, but her attorney, Anthony Scifo, said that he wired money to Indonesia after negotiating an agreement with her uncle, who controls her $1.56 million trust fund until her 30th birthday.
Supersized airline seat for supersized passengers wins design award
The Crystal Cabin Awards were held last week in Hamburg, Germany, and unless you attended the Aircraft Interiors Expo or hosted your own Crystal Cabin party, you might not have heard who won what. The most-buzzed about product might be SII Deutschland’s SANTO Seat, which won the coveted Passenger Comfort Hardware award. The SANTO (Special Accommodation Needs for Toddlers and Overweight Passengers) seat does exactly what it says in its acronym: it is one and a half times as wide as a standard airline seat, so it can comfortably seat either a large passenger or safely hold a child’s booster seat.
The seat – or seats – would be located at the back of the plane, in the area where the cabin narrows. According to the designers, the SANTO is a much safer option for either small children or large passengers who cannot fit between the armrests of a one-size-fits-most seat. In a press release on the SII Deutschland website, Business Unit Manager Peter Miehlke wrote:
The beneficiaries of this concept are both operators and travelers alike, as for a moderate surcharge, the safety of travelling infants can be significantly increased and the comfort of oversized travelers drastically improved.
How to best to accommodate overweight passengers without embarrassing them (or inconveniencing their more moderately sized seatmates) continues to be an issue for airlines. Director Kevin Smith famously called out Southwest Airlines after he said he was booted from a flight for being “too fat.”
On the flip side, in 2011, a United Airlines passenger said that he had to stand for the duration of a seven hour flight from Philadelphia to Anchorage after being squeezed out of his seat by the “400 pound man” beside him. Last fall, a woman flying on Air New Zealand complained of being unable to sit comfortably beside an impressively overweight man; she stood in the aisle for three-plus hours.
More middle seats? Airbus proposes 11-across A380 seating
The layout is one of three new economy class "choices" Airbus customers can select for their planes. They're dubbed Premium, Comfort and Budget.
Business Traveller magazine writes "Premium will be similar to today's premium economy product, which comes with a 19-inch width, and is aimed at business and wealthy leisure travelers." The Comfort layout will be similar to a typical economy seat.
But it's the Budget layout that will feature the 11-across seating in the A380 and will be targeted toward carriers looking to lure more coach-class passengers while keeping fares low. They could be installed into Airbus' planes as soon as 2017, according to NBC News.
"Ninety percent of world travelers are economy but not all are homogeneous," Christopher Emerson, Airbus SVP of Marketing, tells the Leeham Co. aviation consultancy via its News and Comment blog. "We want to give a choice to the 90% of the economy passengers.
"They are going to be the driver of the growth, the doubling of growth in the next 15 years," he adds.
A Budget configuration also apparently will be available on Airbus' other widebodies, which would lead to narrower seating in a 9-across layout on Airbus' A330s and a 10-across layout on its A350s. Emerson tells Leeham Co. that those layouts were designed for markets where price is fliers' top -- and perhaps only -- concern.
"This is the Budget Economy matter," Emerson says to Leeham, noting such markets skew heavily toward China and Southeast Asia. "They are completely agnostic to comfort."
As for the extra A380 seats, how has Airbus come up with the room?
John Walton, a "passenger experience" expert, offers this explanation via the Runway Girl Network:
"Airbus has achieved its record density by cutting seat width by between 1 and 0.5 inches, slashing armrest widths by just over 2cm (nearly an inch), angling window armrests outwards, trimming aisles and — in perhaps the worst case of foot space restriction for window passengers since Bombardier's Q400 turboprop — jamming window seats up against the wall so far that they overhang six inches above the start of the curved sidewall."
Airline industry is least liked industries in study
Passenger satisfaction with air carriers in the U.S. improved slightly this year but not enough to pull airlines from the bottom of the list of most appreciated industries.
When it comes to customer satisfaction, airlines still rank below gas stations, the U.S. Postal Service and public utilities, according to a new report released Monday by the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index, based on interviews with more than 7,000 Americans.
At the top of the list are the makers of television and video players, credit unions and soft-drink producers. At the bottom are airlines, health insurance companies, subscription television services and Internet providers.
The study confirms what airline passengers have been saying lately: Seat comfort and in-flight service are key to making a flight enjoyable.
The study found that most elements of a flight — booking a flight, checking in, handling baggage and boarding — get ratings above 77 in a 100-point scale. Once passengers are seated, the ratings drop.
The two most despised part of flying are seat comfort (65 rating) and in-flight service (72).
“Up until boarding, passengers are reasonably satisfied with airlines but then the problems begin,” the report said.
Despite the ratings, a spokeswoman for the airline industry said carriers have invested heavily in new planes, seats and entertainment systems.
“U.S. airlines continue to do a great job for their customers despite many circumstances beyond their control, including historically severe weather,” said Victoria Day, a spokeswoman for Airlines for America, the trade group for the nation’s largest carriers.
SOUTHWEST AIRLINES’ NEW SEATS ARE WIDER
The newest seats on Southwest Airlines planes are expected to give passengers what they’ve been demanding: more breathing space.
The seats to be installed on Boeing 737-800 planes starting in 2016 will offer about half an inch of extra width on each seat, as well as a new “C-shaped” design to the bottom seat frame, replacing the old “L” shape, thus giving passengers a bit more room around the shins.
But Southwest wouldn’t say how it was able to squeeze an extra half inch out of each seat without narrowing the aisle. The seat designer, Florida-based B/E Aerospace, isn’t talking. Southwest confirms, however, that the armrest between the seats will be “streamlined.”
“We see this as the future of Southwest Airline seats,” said Southwest spokeswoman Thais Conway.
But the future won’t be coming soon. Southwest won’t be ripping out the old seats to replace them with the wider seats. Instead, the wider B/E Aerospace seats will be installed in the new 737-800 and 737-Max as they come on line to replace older Boeing models, from 2016 to 2024.
HOTELS FRET OVER ELECTRIC BILLS
Hotels that want to offer their guests fast-charging stations to power up the electric cars of green-minded guests may worry about getting stuck with higher electric bills.
The Shore Hotel in Santa Monica, Calif. — which describes itself as an eco-chic hotel — says it has solved the problem by installing an energy storage system to go along with a fast-charging system that can power up an EV in about 30 minutes.
The storage system will stockpile energy during low electricity demand periods throughout the day so that electric vehicle owners can charge up without causing a surge in a hotel’s electric bill.
“By flattening out the demand, we are saving the hotel money,” said Vic Shao, chief executive of Green Charge Networks, which builds the storage system. He said the storage systems, which are the size of a small refrigerator, can save hotels thousands of dollars a month.
But other hotel owners say they are happy to pay higher electric bills if it means drawing in more guests.
“The goal is to bring people to your property,” said Patricia Griffin, founder of the Green Hotels Association, a Houston group that promotes green policies for hotels. “These people are enthusiastic about the whole green issue so you want them to come.”
Dominican Republic plane crash kills seven
Britons are no longer thought to be among seven people who were killed when an aircraft crashed in the Dominican Republic.
The plane had taken off from Punta Cana Airport before it crashed in the east of the Caribbean island.
The pilot was reportedly attempting to make an emergency landing when the plane struck the ground in a golf course adjacent to the airport and burst into flames, the Civil Aviation Institute spokesman Hector Olivo told the Daily Mail.
The Foreign Office has been looking into reports that two British citizens were among the six passengers, but it now says this is not thought to be the case. A spokesman said: "We are liaising with the authorities in the Dominican Republic following reports of a plane crash in the Punta Cana region of the country. Engagement with the local police suggests no British nationals were involved in the incident."
Initial reports said four of the six passengers were tourists from Spain and two were from Britain. The pilot was from the Dominican Republic.
Relatives of Germanwings' crash victims may sue in US
Families of the Gemanwings' crash victims could take their claim for compensation to the US courts, a lawyer representing 21 of the families said.
Lawyer Elmar Giemulla said his clients could join the families of the two US victims and said he was working closely with lawyers representing the US families.
The decision will likely hinge on whether Germanwings is prepared to meet the compensation levels that would be expected in the US.
In Germany payouts tend to be lower as there is no separate award made for the emotional suffering of families.
It would be at the discretion of a US judge whether to allow claims by the other families as well in the US, and Giemulla says a precedent has already been set in similar cases.
Giemulla said he will seek €1 million ($1.1 million) for each victim
Lufthansa has already made an interim payment of €50,000 to the families of 111 victims and the remainder will be paid over the coming days.
All 150 people on board the Germanwings jet died when it crashed in the French Alps on March 24.
No more last minute cruise deals on Royal Caribbean
Royal Caribbean has ended the policy of offering 'disruptive' last minute discounted cruise deals.
CEO Richard Fain says the practice is both confusing and damaging to brand integrity.
Deep discounts were offered a month or less ahead of a sailing in order to fill remaining space but irked loyal guests who booked early at full price and was confusing for travel agents, Fain said.
"As a result in March we adopted a new policy that we would not do any last minute discounts on bookings in North America. Depending on the type of cruise, that last minute may be 10, 20 or 30 days out, but from that point on we will hold our price at the prior level."
"This may cost us bookings in the short term and our guidance may reflect that, but we believe the long-term advantage for our brands is worth the small short-term cost. Over time, we believe this will lead to happier guests, happier agents, and better branding," he said.
Fain said the company is committed to upholding the new policy.
"We think getting our customers out of this used-car salesman kind of mentality will be good overall for the brand, good for their experience, and therefore lead to longer yields in the long run."
Mohegan Sun developing 'fly in' gaming resort in South Korea
After several days of unconfirmed reports that a deal was imminent, US casino operator Mohegan Sun has announced it will develop a major casino resort in South Korea.
An agreement has been inked with Incheon International Airport Corp to build what Mohegan Sun calls "the first private jet terminal in the world connected to an integrated casino resort."
The project will be developed on a 800-acre parcel of land within Incheon International Airport, one of the fastest expanding airport hubs in Asia, now handling more than 40 million passengers annually.
It will feature a 200,000 square feet casino with 250 tables and 1,500 slot machines, a 20,000 seat sports arena, and a two-tower luxury hotel with 1,000 rooms.
In addition there will be a retail complex and an amusement park.
This will be Mohegan Sun's first project outside the US and is still subject to being granted a gaming licence from South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
"We look forward to extending the unique Mohegan Sun brand, focused on unparalleled hospitality and guest experience, to South Korea and providing a new, global customer base at a one-of-a kind, must-visit destination," said Bobby Soper, president of Mohegan Sun in a news release.
All Aboard opponents take fight to capital
TALLAHASSEE — State representatives and local lawmakers from the Treasure Coast on Monday urged officials to block All Aboard Florida from receiving $1.75 billion in tax-exempt bonds to finance the building of passenger rail between Miami and Orlando, arguing the project is economically unfeasible, unsafe and threatens a thriving marine boating industry.
The public hearing conducted by the reconstituted Florida Development Finance Corp. Board took place hundreds of miles from where 32 daily trains would pass through 41 cities. But about two dozen opponents — many of them senior citizens — made the seven-hour trek to the state’s capital by chartered bus or car to voice their strident opposition. Members of the board were not present save its executive director, Bill Spivey, who ran the hearing.
“We were willing to go to any length to be here,” said Brent Hanlon, the treasurer for Citizens Against Railway Expansion in Florida.
The approval of the private activity bonds is necessary for the project to move forward and for All Aboard Florida to meet the U.S. Department of Transportation’s specifications. The Coral Gables-based firm needs to pay off $405 million in high-risk bonds it issued last year for the train that would link Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Orlando.
The retirees who spoke expressed concerns about safety for children crossing the tracks on foot and in buses, the increased noise level and that the project appeared to be a ruse to upgrade the tracks to increase freight on the Florida East Coast Railway.
“It’s more about real estate and less about the railway,” said opponent Jo Pulvermacher, a retiree from Jupiter. “There’s something wrong with that picture.”
Many of their positions were echoed by Rep. MaryLynn Magar, R-Hobe Sound, Rep. Debbie May-field, R-Vero Beach, and Rep. Larry Lee Jr., D-Fort Pierce. Lee had most of his comments read into the record after being delayed at the airport by a thunderstorm that also knocked out power to the hotel where the hearing took place.
Magar, whose district includes some of Palm Beach County, rattled off a list of concerns, saying there have yet to be any ridership projections. “All Aboard has not been transparent.” She said quadrupling the train traffic will slow down first-responders, especially ambulances.
The opposition was countered by a half-hour presentation by All Aboard Florida President Michael Reininger and a cavalcade of business leaders, including construction company owner Dwight Stephenson, the former Miami Dolphins all-pro center. They repeatedly invoked Henry Flagler, the visionary whose railroad in the 1880s opened up Palm Beach County and South Florida for not only tourists but for new inhabitants.
After the hearing, Lee said the absence of the board members and the location of the meeting in Tallahassee make it appear that the bond approval is a fait accompli.
“I was very disappointed. It’s likely they are not wanting to have the people affected the most in a negative way to have any voice,” Lee said after the meeting. “They put it way up here to make it very inconvenient.”
Attorney Stephen Ryan, representing the Martin County Commission, said All Aboard Florida doesn’t qualify for the tax-free bonds because its trains won’t travel fast enough to meet the definition of high-speed rail.
“This project is premised on a totally unlawful Department of Transportation theory by saying you can issue $1.7 billion worth of bonds to a railroad by calling it a highway,” he said. “We will have our day in court on this issue.”
Matthew Blair, a lobbyist representing Marine Industries of the Palm Beaches, and Bill Biggs, a director of the Marine Industries Association of the Treasure Coast, said All Aboard would strand commercial and recreational boaters waiting for bridges to open. Biggs said the yacht repair industry would be cut off from customers coming in from the Atlantic Ocean. “They may as well be land-locked,” he said.
All Aboard Florida isolating businesses or neighborhoods by increasing the train traffic was a repeated theme throughout the hearing from opponents.
Paul Westcott, an attorney from Indian River County, said small business will wither as customers decide not to chance getting stopped by a train. “Are you going to establish an area of blight?”
And what if All Aboard fails? Westcott said then the taxpayers will pick up the tab.
“At some point in time we are going to hear ‘too big to fail,’ and our friends in the Legislature are going to be asked to underwrite this project,” he said.
JFK Bunker revamp coming soon
Eight-week overhaul of local Cold War site could start this fall.
A major renovation of the historic John F. Kennedy Bunker on Peanut Island could start as early as this fall, and the project is expected to take about eight weeks, a fundraising consultant told the Port of Palm Beach Commission.
Lily Holt Dillon of LPD International of Palm Beach said Thursday that Hedrick Brothers Construction has indicated the bomb shelter built for Kennedy in 1961 will be the first part of the site it will tackle.
The 6-acre site the port leases to the Palm Beach Maritime Museum also includes a former U.S. Coast Guard Station built in 1936 and the station’s boathouse. The museum charges to give the public tours Thursday through Sunday.
Dillon, a consultant with the maritime museum, said she expects to receive a project cost estimate from Hedrick Brothers within the next 30 days.
Plans call for the bunker to be given a complete face-lift, such as removal of the drywall and installation of metal framing, a new, larger air-conditioning system, a restored front door, replacement of its “outer skin” and a complete paint job.
Innovations such as surround-sound throughout the bunker, interactive touchscreen exhibits and perhaps even mannequins to give visitors an idea of what it would be like to have people staying there are also under consideration, Dillon said.
“We’re proposing to build a stairwell around the back of the bunker to the top with a covered viewing area so guests can look down into the escape hatch,” Dillon said.
Manuel Almira, the port’s executive director, said that during a recent visit to the museum and bunker, he observed that a lot of cleanup has been done, and some of the boats stored on the grounds have been removed.
“The place still needs a lot of love and tender care,” Almira said.
Almira recommended that Palm Beach County Code Enforcement be contacted to inspect the property and buildings, but the commission did not act on the idea.
Chairman Blair Ciklin said he wants to wait and see what happens in 30 days.
In February the commission received a report from engineering firm CH2M Hill detailing problems at the historic facilities including termite damage, mold, and disrepair.
Casey Long, senior project manager at CH2M Hill, said that the “quick and easy” repairs such as fixing a loose banister have been completed. The more expensive items such as painting, remediating water damage, removing rotted wood and repairing windows still need to be done.
Peter Laird, project manager at Gobbell Hays Partners, said the mold issue in the bunker has been corrected, but could return eventually because the root cause remains.
“We’re not bringing in enough fresh air to the building,” Laird said. “It can be remedied. It requires engineering and expense.”
Bill Hancock, who is among those leading the fundraising, said, “This is more of a process than a quick fix, and we are happy to cooperate in any way to continue to get this work done.”
Little relief in airfares for summer travelers
Lower fuel costs don’t translate into sizable savings for passengers.
After years of steadily rising airfares, travelers this summer can expect a tiny bit of relief — $2.01 in savings to be exact.
The average round-trip domestic ticket this summer, including taxes, now stands at $454, down less than 1 percent from last summer. Vacationers to Europe will fare better with the average ticket down 3 percent to $1,619, about $50 less than last summer.
Not all travelers will get to save.
Flights to Hawaii, Florida and New Orleans are cheaper, but travelers heading to New York, Denver and San Francisco can expect to pay more.
Even in Europe, it depends on the destination. Overall fares are down, but it will cost more this summer to fly to cities like Amsterdam; London; Budapest, Hungary; Lisbon, Portugal; Frankfurt, Germany or Reykjavik, Iceland.
Prices are coming down because airlines are saving billions of dollars thanks to lower fuel prices and because more seats have been crammed into planes, spreading out costs over more passengers. European economic troubles also are keeping some seats empty as business travelers stay home.
The generally good news about fares comes in a report released Monday by the Airlines Reporting Corp., which processes ticket transactions for airlines and travel agencies such as Expedia, American Express and Carlson Wagonlit. The study looks at 4.1 million tickets purchased before March 31 this year and last year for travel between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
Airfare during the first three months of this year was also lower, down 3.7 percent domestically and 8.9 percent internationally.
Even with the moderate relief this summer, prices still are higher than just a few years ago. The average domestic round-trip ticket is $13, or 3 percent, higher than it was in 2012. European trips are $60, or 3.9 percent, more expensive.
Travelers can thank lower oil prices and more seats on planes for keeping this summer’s airfare in check. Airlines at the start of the year paid $2.13 for each gallon of jet fuel, down 30 percent from last year’s $3.03, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. With U.S. airlines burning through 42 million gallons of fuel a day, that 90-cent savings adds up quickly: $14.7 billion for the entire year if prices remain at these levels.
Travelers are only seeing a sliver of those savings. The rest of the money is being used to upgrade airplanes and airports, pay employee bonuses and reward shareholders as airlines continue to post record profits.
Gas prices could rise this week
Rising prices for oil pushed up the price of gasoline in South Florida last week and could send gas prices up a few more cents this week, travel club AAA said.
But officials still expect gas prices in the United States to hit six-year-lows this summer. Prices remain more than $1 per gallon cheaper than last year.
On Monday, the price of regular gas in Broward County averaged $2.58 per gallon, up 5 cents from the week before but down $1.24 from a year earlier. The price in Palm Beach County averaged $2.64 per gallon, up 6 cents form a week earlier and down $1.22 from a year before, AAA said.
Prices for oil rose last week in part on news that Al Qaeda militants took control of a major oil terminal in Yemen. That stoked concerns that violence could spread in the oil-producing region, AAA said.
"It could take a full week before the full impact of higher oil prices hit the gas pump, and gas prices could rise 5 to 10 cents as a result," AAA spokesman Mark Jenkins said in the group's weekly fuel briefing. "The good news is that [the price of] oil began to fall again by the end of last week," suggesting the rise in gas prices will be limited.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration has forecast average gas prices nationwide from April through September at $2.45 per gallon, down from $3.59 per gallon last year. That's largely because of record oil production in the U.S. that is contributing to a glut of worldwide supply.
South Florida's gas prices generally are higher than the U.S. average because of higher taxes.
Southwest Airlines sued over death of financial trader
The widow of a financial trader is suing Southwest Airlines, claiming the crew on her huband's flight last year didn't offer adequate medical attention when he collapsed in a lavatory.
Kelly Ilczyszyn filed a wrongful death suit in Alameda County Superior Court, saying the Dallas-based airline treated her dying husband, Richard Ilczyszyn, as if he were causing a disturbance when he was found moaning and crying in the bathroom of a Sept. 16 flight last year.
In a statement, Southwest Airlines said it responded "appropriately and professionally" to the "unfortunate medical event." The airline said the crew on the plane "attempted to reach the customer in an effort to provide assistance."
Richard Ilczyszyn, 46, a financial trader and contributor to CNBC's "Futures Now" show, died 17 hours after being taken off of the flight from Oakland International Airport to John Wayne Airport in Orange County. He died of a pulmonary embolism.
The suit asks for financial damages suffered by Kelly and her three children but does not list a specific dollar amount.
The suit said Richard Ilczyszyn collapsed in the bathroom about 10 minutes before the plane was scheduled to land in Orange County. Members of the flight crew opened the door to find Ilczyszyn "in distress while crying and moaning" and proceeded to treat the incident "as involving an improper disruption by a passenger" instead of a medical emergency, the suit says.
The plane continued to John Wayne Airport, where other passengers were removed before sheriff's deputies were called by the flight crew to deal with a passenger that had "barricaded himself in the bathroom," according to the suit.
The lawsuit suggests that Richard Ilczyszyn could have survived had the Southwest crew provided immediate medical attention.
Kelly Ilczyszyn worked as a Southwest Airlines flight attendant for 16 years. "I feel let down by my work family," she said. "They dropped the ball."
Royal Caribbean posts $45.2 million 1Q profit
The world's second-largest cruise company saw better-than-expected earnings in the first quarter, although a strong US dollar and higher fuel costs hindered results.
Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. on Monday reported net income of $45.2 million, or 20 cents a share, compared with $26.5 million, or 12 cents, in the same period last year.
The Miami-based cruise company said strong last-minute pricing on Caribbean cruises was the primary driver of quarter's results.
"It is gratifying to post another strong quarter with both revenues and expenses exceeding expectations," Richard D. Fain, chairman and CEO, said in an earnings statement.
Nevertheless, Royal Caribbean's shares fell 8 percent to $72.71 Monday on the New York Stock Exchange. Although the quarterly profit beat Wall Street expectations, revenue fell short of analysts' forecasts.
Revenue slipped nearly 3.8 percent to $1.81 billion, from 1.88 billion in the 2014 quarter.
Revenue from tickets and onboard spending slipped as the cruise company battled the currency and fuel headwinds.
Since the majority of onboard revenue is priced in US dollars, the strengthening of the currency led to reduced purchasing power of many international passengers, affecting their onboard spending, Royal Caribbean said.
"There will always be ebbs and flows in our business, and we don't see this year as any different," Fain noted in a conference call with analysts, from the company's newest ship Anthem of the Seas.
Anthem, which Fain called "an absolute marvel," was christened Monday in Southampton, U.K., where it will be based until October for sailings to the Mediterranean and Canary Islands. It will move in November to New York Harbor, where it will be based for sailings from Cape Liberty Cruise Port to Bermuda, the Caribbean and Canada and New England.
During the quarter, overall bookings were higher than a year ago, with Caribbean bookings seeing particularly strong demand, Royal Caribbean said.
Bookings for European cruises were also up, but demand for Eastern Mediterranean itineraries was softer than last year, particularly for those with stops in Turkey.
As for China, demand remains strong for cruises in that region, with bookings outpacing expectations in spite of the significant capacity growth in the region, Royal Caribbean said.
"We had an overall good Wave period," said Jason T. Liberty, the company's chief financial officer of the traditional annual promotional period.
During the Wave season, which runs January through March, cruise operators typically offer their best deals and incentives to entice travelers to book voyages early. This year, however, Royal Caribbean did something different.
In March, the cruise company said it decided to eliminate last-minute discounting on cruise bookings in North America in an attempt to improve the integrity of its pricing model.
"Getting our customers out of this sort of used car salesman mentality will be overall good," Fain said. "It may cost us some bookings in the short term," but we believe it will be worth it in the long term.
The company's cruise brands include Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises.
Looking ahead and citing the continued negative effect of fuel prices and a strong U.S. dollar, Royal Caribbean cut its adjusted earnings per share forecast for the year to $4.45 to $4.65, down $4.65 to $4.85.
For the second quarter, the cruise company said it expects adjusted earnings per share of about 70 cents.
Lyft argues it's not a taxi service in appeal of citation
TAMPA — Ride-sharing company Lyft argued Monday that it's not a taxi service and accused Hillsborough County of violating the law when it penalized the mobile app maker for operating here.
The latest salvo in the ongoing battle between the county and so-called transportation networking services came during Lyft's appeal hearing for a citation it received in December. The ticket was issued after a Public Transportation Commission sting operation caught a driver picking up passengers using the company's mobile application.
During the hearing, which grew contentious at times, Lyft lawyer Steve Anderson said the PTC can't issue citations because it doesn't have the authority to regulate ride-sharing companies. Justin Lyn, team lead on the trust and safety team for Lyft, said Lyft is a software company facilitating a transaction, like eBay, not a transportation company.
"Lyft doesn't own any vehicles at all," Lyn said. "Lyft doesn't employ anybody for the purposes of driving."
But the county argued that Lyft is clearly operating as a for-hire transportation service, which falls under its purview. Passengers flag drivers using a mobile app, which also acts as a meter tracking distance driven by the pickup vehicle, and Lyft takes a 20 percent cut from the cost of trip.
"In order for Lyft to make money someone has to be transported from point A to point B," said Rob Brazel, chief assistant county attorney.
Hearing officer Susan More previously ruled in September that drivers for Lyft's competitor Uber were, essentially, cabs and upheld certain citations against the company. Her line of questioning Monday indicated she remains skeptical of the ride-sharing argument.
"Why would you carry liability insurance for automobiles if you're not in the business of providing transportation?" she asked Lyn, who said it was for safety.
Lyft and the county agreed that a decision in the case will apply to 38 other tickets issued last year. PTC investigators have penalized Lyft and Uber, as well as drivers using the companies' apps, dozens of times in the past year.
The appeal hearing comes as the county is exploring new rules that would regulate ride-sharing companies. Anderson tried to argue that the fact the county was pushing for new rules demonstrated that existing policies did not give the PTC authority to regulate ride-sharing.
More ruled the argument was not relevant to an appeal hearing about a single citation.