WAV Travel News - Thursday Edition
Bill Vervaeke, CDME
West Palm Beach, FL 33411
(561) 795-5912 (Office & Facsimile)
(561) 318-9089 (Cellular)
Report: Cuba visits from U.S. up 36% this year
U.S. visitors to Cuba between Jan. 1 and May 9 totaled 51,458, a jump of 36% over the same period a year ago, according to figures provided to the Associated Press from Jose Luis Perello Cabrera, an economist in the University of Havana's tourism studies department.
The figure includes thousands who are flying into Cuba from countries such as Mexico, Jamaica, the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands in order to sidestep U.S. restrictions on tourism, according to AP. The number does not include Cuban-Americans with family ties to Cuba.
The statistics show that 38,476 visitors flew directly from the U.S. to Cuba, up from 29,213 in the same five-month period in 2014. Most of these visitors were traveling in one of the 12 allowed categories of authorized travel, including humanitarian, educational, academic and people-to-people programs.
Of the remaining visitors, 12,982 Americans arrived via third countries, a 57% increase over the 8,246 Americans who traveled in that manner during the same period in 2014.
According to the latest figures supplied by Cuba to the Caribbean Tourism Organization for the January-March period, tourists who arrived by air rose 14.1%, to 1.13 million.
March recorded the highest number of visitors, 404,421, up 12.5% over March 2014.
CTO did not have a specific breakdown for the number of U.S. visitors to Cuba, but indicated that U.S. visitors were included in the category labeled “other,” which totaled 328,337 visitors, a 16% increase. The main markets for Cuba from January through March were Canada with 551,360 visitors, up 12.4%; Europe, 255,913 visitors, up 15.2%; followed by “other.”
What NOAA’s 2015 hurricane forecast numbers, percentages really mean
Despite more predictions Wednesday from experts that it will likely be a quieter than normal hurricane season, the information comes with two caveats — they don’t know where the storms will go and below average doesn’t mean zero.
NOAA predicts 6-11 named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher), of which 3-6 could become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher), including 0-2 major hurricanes (winds of 111 mph or higher) for the 2015 hurricane season. They also project a 70 percent likelihood that it will be below average.
In a similar report released last month, Colorado State forecasters William Gray and Phil Klotzbach also projected a season that won’t make the average of 12 named storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes.
Still, anyone in areas that could be affected by hurricanes should make their plans before a storm is bearing down, said Joseph Nimmich, FEMA deputy administrator. Families should assemble kits that include three days worth of food and water, secure their homes and make evacuation plans before the June 1 start to hurricane season.
“You need to think about that now,” he said. “You need to think about it for yourselves and you need to think about it for your neighbors.”
NOAA’s forecasters attributed the prediction to the formation of El Niño in the Pacific Ocean and about average ocean temperatures in the Atlantic. El Niño is a phenomenon of warmer water in the Pacific Ocean that creates more wind-shear in the atmosphere, causing a suppressing effect for hurricanes in the Atlantic.
Though El Niño and the below-normal outlook are good signs, it only takes one storm to cause catastrophic damage to an area, said Kathryn Sullivan, NOAA administrator.
The 1992 season produced only seven named storms, but the first was Andrew — a devastating Category 5 hurricane that leveled Homestead. It also occurred during an El Niño year.
“It doesn’t matter how many pitches we face, just how many hit the strike zone,” she said.
Sullivan also praised new technology that will help NOAA and the National Hurricane Center in its forecasting, enabling local emergency management teams to make more informed decisions.
Using 2014 Hurricane Arthur as an example, Sullivan said only a portion of the Outer Banks was evacuated when 10 to 20 years ago it would have been all of the North Carolina coast.
Last May, NOAA predicted 8-13 named storms, 3-6 hurricanes and 1-2 major hurricanes. The final totals were eight named storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes.
No major hurricanes have made landfall in the country in nine years, which causes some concern that people might not take the season seriously or remember proper procedures. White House press secretary Josh Earnest emphasized that in a conference call ahead of President Barack Obama’s visit to Miami’s National Hurricane Center.
Since Wilma in 2005, no storm of at least Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale has struck the U.S. mainland and no hurricane of any kind has struck Florida; in that time, Florida’s population has increased by some 3 million.
Earnest stressed that state and local leaders have the responsibility to lead response to hurricanes. And he said that, while this White House hasn’t itself steered management of a major hurricane, it has an ace in the bullpen: Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Craig Fugate, who as Florida’s emergency manager, handled the manic 2004 and 2005 seasons.
And he said that, as head of FEMA under Obama, Fugate also has “a lot of experience in dealing with natural disasters that have put a lot of Americans in harm’s way.”
Aviation Officials Investigating Air France Flight's Near Miss with Volcano
French aviation authorities are looking into what led to an Air France flight's near miss with an active volcano in Africa earlier this month.
According to CNN, the Boeing 777 was carrying 37 passengers from Equatorial Guinea to Cameroon on May 2 when it had a close encounter with the region's highest mountain, Mount Cameroon, which is currently an active volcano.
The plane "was flying at cruising altitude between Malabo and Douala in stormy conditions," said Air France in a statement. "The route they took to avoid the storm took their trajectory close to Mount Cameroon."
France's air accident investigation agency, BEA, said that the plane's "pull-up" alarm came on as a result and the pilots responded by ascending the aircraft from 9,000 feet to 13,000 feet.
"This proximity was detected by the EGPWS system (enhanced ground proximity warning system, that gives more detailed information than the GPWS)," added the airline. "This system generated an alarm in the cockpit to which the pilots responded immediately by applying the appropriate procedure."
"Pilots receive regular training in this type of maneuver," said Air France.
The flight landed safely in Douala, Cameroon and an airline official told CNN affiliate BFMTV that passengers aboard the flight were unaware of the close encounter at the time.
Nonetheless, the BEA described the situation as "a serious incident" involving "controlled flight into or toward terrain."
Air France stated that it will investigate the incident internally.
Christie backs vote for north Jersey casino question
Christie supports putting northern New Jersey casino question on ballot
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) -- Gov. Chris Christie supports asking voters if they want to change the state constitution to allow casino gambling in northern New Jersey.
Appearing on his monthly "Ask The Governor" program on radio station New Jersey 101.5 FM Wednesday night, Christie said he has no problem with the question going on the ballot "right away." The governor said competition is only going to grow, particularly in New York.
Christie said he would support the amendment as long as there are provisions that would help Atlantic City and workers adjust to the shrinking casino market.
Christie's comments came a day after Hard Rock International and the Meadowlands Racetrack proposed a casino just outside New York City.
The companies will unveil the project next week.
Airbus Superjumbo May See Second Life in Asian Low-Cost Markets
Airbus A380 superjumbos being retired from premium carriers such as Singapore Airlines Ltd. may find a second life plying six- to eight-hour routes for low-cost Asian airlines, the European planemaker predicted.
Singapore Airlines and Emirates, the double-decker’s biggest customers, may return older planes back to leasing companies in the next two to three years, putting them back into the market for second-hand use, said Kiran Rao, director of strategy at Airbus.
Airbus is seeking new sales avenues for its largest model, which has run out of order momentum in recent years as potential customers balk at the size of the aircraft that makes it less flexible on most routes. The A380 could become attractive for those Asian carriers already packing above-average passenger numbers into their jets, Rao said.
Low-cost airlines such as AirAsia Bhd and Cebu Pacific Air of the Philippines have seen rapid traffic expansion from fast-growing middle classes and the easing of visa restrictions, with growing incomes expanding the range of flights taken. Cebu Pacific is already packing 436 seats into six A330s that typically fly 300 to 350 people.
While existing customers for the A380 tend to fly the plane with 500 to 550 passengers, Rao predicted that Asian low-cost carriers buying used A380s would likely reconfigure them for a far denser seating arrangement.
“We could go to about 800,” Rao said on Thursday in Toulouse, where Airbus is based. Still, carriers who purchased the planes from Airbus would more likely fly them in two classes -- business and economy -- with about 600 seats.
Emirates, which has ordered 140 A380s, has said it generally likes to retire planes after 12 years to keep its fleet fresh. The carrier hasn’t said when it will give the first of its A380s back to lessors who have purchased the planes from Emirates. Singapore Air was the first customer to fly the aircraft commercially.
More Texas towns brace for high water; death toll climbs
PARKER COUNTY, Texas — At Horseshoe Bend in Parker County, residents hope luck isn't running out. The community of several hundred trailers and RVs sits on the banks of the swollen Brazos River.
County Judge Mark Riley ordered Horseshoe Bend be evacuated by 8 p.m. CT Wednesday, along with other low-lying neighborhoods. Officials cannot force residents to leave, but Riley said the river could rise another nine feet by the time it crests.
"Water could be up to the top of the carport," said David Cantu, as he hitched up his RV to haul it to higher ground. "All these structures could be gone."
The storms that produced the flooding were part of a system that stretched from Mexico into the central USA. The death toll from the system climbed to 35 — 14 in Mexico, 17 in Texas and four in Oklahoma. The Houston area alone had seven storm-related deaths.
This has been the wettest month on record for Texas, and there are still several days left. The state climatologist's office said Wednesday that Texas has gotten an average of 7.54 inches of rain in May, breaking the old record of 6.66 inches, set in June 2004.
Texas has been hit with almost continuous storms for the past week to 10 days. The wettest area has been from Dallas-Fort Worth to the Red River, where some places have gotten more than 20 inches of rain.
Down in south Texas, Wharton Mayor Domingo Montalvo issued a call at 5 p.m. Wednesday for a voluntary evacuation of the west side of the city of 8,800 because of the predicted rise of the Colorado River, which has seen flash flooding in the Austin and Texas Hill Country sections of its watershed upstream.
The National Weather Service reported the river level at Wharton was almost 36 feet at 2 p.m. Wednesday. Flood stage is 39 feet. The river was expected to top that level Wednesday night and not crest until it reaches almost 46 feet Friday evening. That would flood many homes in the area with up to 2-3 feet of water and isolate and flood a school.
More rain fell on the hard-hit Houston area, temporarily complicating the cleanup a day after a downpour of nearly a foot triggered the worst flooding the nation's fourth-largest city has seen in years. Hundreds of homes were damaged.
Houston Mayor Annise Parker said two people whose boat capsized during a rescue were missing. Another person was missing in suburban Houston.
The body of Alice Tovar, 73, of Rosenberg, who was swept away by floodwaters Tuesday, was found by her brother-in-law along a creekside fence late Wednesday afternoon.
"I'm just in shock to see her like that," said Ricky Aguilar. "We went all through the woods all day looking for her when she was right there all along."
Tovar was reported missing Tuesday when her family learned she didn't show up for work at a nearby gas station. Her car was later found by her daughter, but Tovar had been swept away.
And in Central Texas, crews resumed the search for eight people feared dead after the swollen Blanco River smashed through Wimberley, a small tourist town between San Antonio and Austin, over the Memorial Day weekend.
Authorities recovered the body of a boy from the Blanco late Wednesday evening. A Hays County statement says it's unclear whether the child is on the county's list of those missing from the storm.
Earlier Wednesday, county authorities identified Jose Alvardo Arteaga-Pichardo and Michelle Carey-Charba as two of the area's flood victims. Arteaga-Pichardo's body was found near Loop 165 in Wimberley Tuesday afternoon, and Carey-Charba's body was found Tuesday morning in Caldwell County.
A third person was found dead in San Marcos Saturday. Hays County officials identified the body Wednesday evening as Dayton Larry Thomas, 74.
Wimberley saw some of the heaviest damage, including the loss of a two-story vacation home that was swept downstream and slammed into a bridge. Eight people in the home went missing, including three children.
Aerial crews are searching for the missing using drones, geographic information system mapping and thermal imaging. Many areas are still not accessible by search crews due to damage.
More than 50 people from Texas Task Force One are forming search teams on the ground. Public works teams are also being deployed by the state. According to police, those teams will be in Hays County for at least the next two weeks.
As volunteers and help poured in, the state Bar of Texas set up a free legal hotline to assist low-income residents with issues like replacing lost documents, insurance questions, landlord issues, or any kind of scams during the recovery process.
Airbnb is offering all of its room-booking services free of charge for flood victims until June 9 at multiple places in Austin, San Antonio and parts of south Texas.
And KVUE-TV set up a gofundme page to collect money for Hays County flood victims.
President Obama pledged federal funding for affected areas Tuesday while Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has declared more than 45 counties disaster areas.
"It's important that we remember this flood for years to come so that we don't take things lightly. One of our greatest problems has been getting people to understand how devastating a flood is. It costs lives and property. People are ... it will change them forever," said Hays County Judge Bert Cobb.
Joe McComb said he is just thankful his son Jonathan survived Saturday night's flooding in Wimberley.
It's looking like his daughter-in-law Laura and his two grandchildren, 6-year-old Andrew and 4-year-old Leighton, may not have.
The McComb family, as well as five others, were swept downstream and the floodwaters knocked a home they were all in, off its foundation and into the swift water. Jonathan McComb told his father he survived by swimming, not knowing at times if he was right-side up or not.
Once he finally managed to reach shore, McComb had been swept roughly 12 miles downstream.
"He did get up enough and saw a light at somebody's house," Joe McComb said. "(He) crawled over there, knocked on the door and told them, 'Our house just got washed away. I need help.' and pretty much then his energy level just collapsed."
Jonathan McComb, who received a broken rib and collapsed lung, may be released from the hospital as early as the weekend, his father said.
"The only way a person can go through this, in my opinion is that if they've got a deep faith in God," Joe McComb said.
The family is holding onto that faith and praying for good news about Laura and the kids.
"If the Lord feels like that we're to continue to have them, then that miracle will be provided," McComb said. "If not, heaven's going to be benefited by their presence because they're wonderful children."
Delta pilot orders pizza for delayed flight (is this becoming a thing?)
Is there any problem pizza can’t make better? Even the disgruntled huffing and puffing of passengers stuck on Delta Flight 1364 in Knoxville, Tennessee were no match for the cheesy goodness, after torrential rains diverted a Philadelphia-Atlanta flight there on May 26.
After hours waiting on the tarmac, the pilot called in an order to Pizza Hut and had the pizza trucked out in a baggage cart to the airplane. They weren’t the only Delta passengers wiping red sauce from their shirt lapels, as other delayed flights from Ohio, Illinois, and Mississippi reported similar feasts. “It’s part of an effort company-wide,” Delta spokesman Morgan Durrant told CNN, “when weather disrupts our operation to get food and beverages to delayed customers.”
Considering that’s more good press than Delta’s received in a while, we hope the airline will add pizza to more flights (but not Pizza Hut, please), or even to the company logo. Meanwhile, flight 1346 eventually landed in Atlanta at 7 pm, three hours late, but happy.
US DOT to Levy Harsher Penalties Against Airlines for Mishandled Baggage
The U.S. Department of Transportation announced on Tuesday that it will increase the penalty on airlines that mishandle passengers' luggage.
According to Tim Devaney of The Hill, the DOT will penalize airlines that lose or damage baggage by making them liable for reimbursement up to $3,500, a $100 increase over the previous limit of $3,400.
In addition to the mishandled baggage penalty, the agency will increase penalties handed down to airlines that deny passengers boarding because of an overbooked flight.
Devaney reports that a majority of those travelers who are denied boarding involuntarily would be eligible to receive between $675 and $1,350 in compensation.
The increased penalties are scheduled to take effect in 90 days' time.
According to the DOT, 1.8 million passengers filed mishandled baggage claims in 2013, while 57,000 were involuntarily denied boarding over the course of the year.
Although the $100 increase seems significant, it's likely to only impact a small percentage of unfortunate passengers. That's because of the nearly two million travelers who filed claims regarding mishandled baggage two years ago, fewer than 0.6 percent filed claims of more than $3,400.
The DOT anticipates that the increase will cost the airlines an additional $1 million each year collectively.
Plane Forced to Make Two Emergency Landings in Kansas City
Passengers on United Airlines Flight 594 from Washington, D.C. to Denver, Colo., got more than they bargained for when the plane they were on was forced to make two separate emergency landings at Kansas City International Airport Tuesday night.
According to Brenda Washington of KMBC.com, United Airlines Flight 594 was first forced to land in Kansas City due to weather radar issues onboard the plane. All 142 passengers and crew members were unharmed and the plane managed to land safely at the airport.
Three hours later, the repaired aircraft was cleared to depart from Kansas City, but was once again forced to turn around and make another emergency landing at the airport after just 10 minutes in the air.
The pilot reported hydraulic issues on the Airbus A-320, and the plane landed safely just before 11 p.m. local time.
Unfortunately, the plane was not cleared to fly again until proper repairs were made, and passengers were forced to rebook on other flights set to depart on Wednesday.
The report from KMBC.com indicates the passengers were frustrated that only two agents at the airport were available to help them, but officials from United Airlines did give customers hotel and food vouchers.
All customers were booked on flights to their destination by Wednesday morning.
Tampa International Airport brings car rental companies under one roof
TAMPA — One selling point of Tampa International Airport CEO Joe Lopano's $943 million plan to remake the airport is that it would make renting cars there a whole lot easier.
Instead of looking for deals on or off airport property, customers in the ninth largest rental market in the nation would be able to choose from a range of prices, choices and companies all under one roof.
That perk will be a reality in two years: The airport said that nine rental companies — representing 16 different brands — have signed agreements to use its new 2.6 million-square-foot rental facility months before its even set to break ground this fall.
"I personally did not expect to sign them up so quickly," Lopano said this week. "But I will tell you that I am very, very happy that we have them on-site now."
Most of the companies that serve the airport, including several that are now off-site, have signed agreements, officials said. Those contracts must still be approved by the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority, the airport's governing board, on June 4.
When it's finished, the new car rental facility will be a four-minute ride from the renovated main terminal using a new 1.3-mile automated people mover.
Once the shuttle doors slide open in the new rental car facility, Lopano said, customers will have access to most of the rental brands, big and small, serving the airport. That means no more bus rides off airport property looking for a better deal.
"Even if you don't have a reservation, you'll be able to see everything from the $29 car to the $200 car," Lopano said. "You can shop the room. From a customer service standpoint, it is the optimal situation."
Many other airports have built consolidated rental car facilities. But Lopano pledged that: "This will be finest rental car experience in the country."
The new facility is projected to generate an additional $8 million annually for the airport, officials said.
Under the airport's current agreements with rental car agencies, it's guaranteed a minimum of $23.1 million a year. But under the new contracts, that will rise 34 percent to $31 million.
"That's the minimum," said airport spokeswoman Emily Nipps, "but obviously we expect this market to grow."
In fact, the four-story rental car facility will be 300,000 square feet bigger than airport officials originally intended. They added space to fit the entire Tampa car rental market and give it enough space to handle 10 years of projected growth.
The airport currently has four major players operating in the main terminal: Avis Budget Group Inc., Enterprise Rent-A-Car, the Hertz Corp. and Thrifty Car Rental.
Airport officials said that when those companies move to the new facility, Thrifty will be absorbed by its parent company, Hertz. The three big players will then share counter space on the fourth floor with their subsidiaries, smaller companies and independent operators. The other three floors will be used to store rental vehicles.
"We sized it to be able to handle all the on-airport and off-airport guys," Lopano said. "We knew there was a lot of interest for the off-airport guys to come onto the airport and compete."
The advantage for the rental companies, airport officials said, is that the new facility allows them to consolidate their operations in one corner of the airport. They won't have to rent cars on one end of the airport and service them on the other end anymore.
"The rental car companies are very, very excited about the efficiencies this new building will give them," Lopano said.
Here are the brands that will be available:
Ace Rent A Car; Advantage Car Rental; Alamo Car Rental; Avis Car Rental; Budget Rent A Car; Dollar Rent A Car; Economy Car Rentals; Enterprise Rent-A-Car; E-Z Rent-A-Car; Fox Rent A Car; Hertz Rent-A-Car; National Car Rental; Payless Car Rental; Sixt; Thrifty Car Rental; Zipcar
Theme parks introduce food apps for restaurant orders
Theme parks are using technology to reduce waits, but not just for rides.
They have started to allow customers to skip the cashier and order food ahead of time.
Disney World recently started online preordering for its Be Our Guest restaurant, and this month it tested smartphone ordering at the Backlot Express restaurant and during its "Fantasmic!" nighttime show.
SeaWorld Orlando in November said guests could use an app to purchase select menu items ahead of time at Seaport Pizza. SeaWorld plans to expand the system into more of its restaurants and theme parks over the summer.
"It's very convenient, and that's what we're hearing from our guests," said Cathy Valeriano, SeaWorld's vice president of culinary operations. "It's definitely kind of the wave of the future."
Restaurants and theme parks say they are responding to consumers who are increasingly tech-savvy and hungry for convenience.
Another benefit is that "this is a labor-saving device, because they don't need as many cashiers," Boston University hospitality professor Chris Muller said.
In February, the Be Our Guest restaurant in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom began accepting lunch reservations and allowing guests who have them to order meals up to 30 days in advance. Diners pay upon arrival. Credit card guarantees of the reservations are required.
Be Our Guest also has touchscreen kiosks in place for lunch guests. Disney has considered all kinds of electronic conveniences, from personalized digital menus to having employees with tablets take orders from people standing in line at attractions.
Introducing new technology to visitors in the theme parks can be tricky, though, said Robert Niles, editor of the Theme Park Insider blog.
"It's very difficult to change guests' behaviors in the theme park environment because people are on vacation and don't want to be trying to analyze anything," he said.
During a recent lunch hour at SeaWorld, no one was picking up meals at the Seaport Pizza window that is used for customers using the app. SeaWorld would not disclose how many customers have used the order-ahead service but said it gets used more during peak vacation periods.
Experts: Volusia hotel boom puts upward pressure on wages
Hard Rock, Westin would put upward pressure on hotel wages
DAYTONA BEACH — Help wanted: a rock and roll buff to keep the guests at one Daytona Beach hotel grooving.
The “vibe manager”at the proposed Hard Rock Hotel & Café will get paid $50,000 a year to do just that — control the hotel’s feel through culture and carefully selected music playlists. The gig is just one of many hotel jobs coming soon to the area thanks to a string of upscale resorts opening here.
And with a high-caliber product comes higher pay, which could ripple through the employee ranks at other local hotels, said Bob Davis, president and CEO for the Hotel & Lodging Association of Volusia County.
“As new hotels come in, surrounding hotels will up their pay scale,” he said. “And we are entitled to that. We have always been the blue-collar tourism destination. Now that’s changing.”
More than 25 jobs at the Hard Rock — which is set to open by December 2018 — will earn over $50,000 a year with five more making over $100,000, Henry Wolfond, CEO of Canada-based Bayshore Capital Inc., the developer of the Hard Rock complex, wrote in an email to county officials.
These top positions include a general manager, directors of finance, sales and human resources, an executive chef, front office and housekeeping managers, along with the vibe manager.
Other middle-income positions include assistant managers, more chefs and engineers. Hourly positions will be up to $17 an hour, with workers in many front-of-house positions eligible for tips, Wolfond said.
“Total annual wages at the resort will be over $5 (million) before benefits,” Wolfond said. “That is a lot of coin going into people’s pockets.”
Those wages skew higher than the average in Volusia County, where hotel and motel workers earned an annual average of $23,295 in 2014, according to CareerSource Flagler Volusia. That’s under the national average of $31,503 a year.
But that number could climb as more hotels are on the hunt for new employees. Several local properties say they generally adjust their salaries depending on the market.
One of those is the Hilton Daytona Beach Oceanfront Resort, which has hired nearly 60 people in the last three months because of booming business, said Jane Peterson, regional director of human resources for Pyramid Hotel Group, the Boston-based company that manages the hotel.
“We do a competitive wage survey,” she said. “We go out to all of the local hotels, the bigger hotels. I also pick a couple of hotels in Orlando because I like to be competitive within Florida.”
Keeping up with competitors is also important to Domien Takx, corporate director of operations for Premier Resorts & Management, Inc., which is hiring at least 45 people for its newest beachfront hotel. The 141-room Hilton Garden Inn, located at the site of the former Bermuda House, is set to open by summer.
“If you’re not competitive, you don’t get (the workers),” Takx said. “If we would be materially higher or lower than anyone else, it wouldn’t work.”
“And (that’s) without any new hotels,” she said. “So if we’re getting new ones, that number is definitely going to jump.”
More opportunities here could also prevent hospitality students from graduating and fleeing to other cities with slightly higher-paying positions, such as Orlando or Miami, said Taryn Brown, an assistant professor at the Mori Hosseini College of Hospitality and Culinary Management at Daytona State College.
“What we’re finding from our students is that while some of them desire to go outside of the community, a lot of them want to stay here,” she said. “We want to keep these educated students here in our community and help build management and develop the tourism industry here.”
While Tina Stuff hasn’t considered moving away, the Daytona State College culinary student admits it hasn’t always been easy to find a good hospitality job in the area. However, she feels that’s all about to change.
“With all of these projects coming up, there will be a lot more jobs,” Stuff said. “It will just take a little bit of time.”
Apple executive adds to chatter that company is looking to cars
Apple Inc. just poured more fuel on speculation that it's working on a car.
Confronted by a shareholder Wednesday at a rare public forum over where Apple is looking to invest its cash, Jeff Williams, Apple's senior vice president of operations, seemed to suggest the automotive industry.
"The car is the ultimate mobile device, isn't it?" Williams said during the Re/code conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. Pressed further by Re/code co-founder Walt Mossberg, Williams appeared to pull back a little, addressing the importance of Apple's in-car information and entertainment system, CarPlay.
"We're exploring a lot of different markets," Williams said.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has been facing increased pressure to return cash to shareholders. He meanwhile is moving the company into new areas, including smartwatches and mobile payments, as part of a strategy to further mesh users' lives with Apple's products and services.
The Cupertino, California-based company has been exploring the development of a car and pushing its team to begin production of an electric vehicle as early as 2020, though it might ultimately halt the program, people familiar with the effort have said.
Apple's cash pile grew to $193.5 billion at the end of March. Facing heat from investors such as Carl Icahn, Apple increased its capital-return program through March 2017 by $70 billion. The company said it returned more than $112 billion to investors from August 2012 to March of this year.
Wednesday's event wasn't the first time an investor questioned Apple's future with cars. At Apple's annual shareholder meeting in March, Cook faced questions about a possible marriage with electric-car maker Tesla Motors Inc. He sidestepped the issue.
"We don't really have a relationship with Tesla," he said, pivoting to Apple's in-car information and entertainment system. "I'd love Tesla to pick up CarPlay. We now have every major auto brand committing to use CarPlay."
Mary Barra, the chief executive officer of General Motors, said at Wednesday's conference that Chevrolet models will integrate with CarPlay and Google Inc.'s Android Auto.
Bill Vervaeke, CDME
West Palm Beach, FL 33411
(561) 795-5912 (Office & Facsimile)
(561) 318-9089 (Cellular)
Travel agents react to Lufthansa's move against GDS channel
While some travel agents are still evaluating the potential impact of Lufthansa Group’s decision to add a fee of 16 euros (about $17.78) to every GDS booking starting Sept. 1, others are speaking out against it.
Travel Leaders Group CEO Barry Liben called Lufthansa’s new strategy "at best disappointing and at worst counterintuitive.”
“Their move effectively places them at a competitive disadvantage on airfare pricing,” Liben said in a statement. "Simply put, consumers who comparatively shop on price will pay more to fly on Lufthansa. For the vast majority of our clients, the economics will dictate that we book them either on other carriers that serve those routes or through codeshare partners. As we pursue the best interests of our clients, Travel Leaders Group will continue our ongoing discussions with our airline and GDS partners."
ASTA stated that while it is still studying the potential impact of the move on travel agents, it considers it to be "discrimination against the channel travel agents choose to use to book tickets for their customers.”
In a message to its members, ASTA said, "The Lufthansa Group also announced it is in the process of developing a new booking method to enable its 'sales partners' to connect to their IT systems directly based on IATA’s NDC (New Distribution Capability) standard. The exact meaning of 'sales partners' in this context is unknown. IATA’s NDC is still in the development stage, though some limited commercial implementations do exist, so the timing of the Group’s new booking method is unclear.”
Mike Estil, COO of the Western Association of Travel Agencies, said, "When finally the bias toward American flagged carriers by American agents is at its weakest point since the beginning of deregulation, one would think this would be a time of relationship building ... not bridge burning."
Pipeline that spilled oil on California coast badly corroded
Preliminary report: Pipeline that spilled oil on Central California coast was badly corroded
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A pipeline rupture that spilled an estimated 101,000 gallons of crude oil near Santa Barbara last month occurred along a badly corroded section that had worn away to a fraction of an inch in thickness, according to federal regulators.
The preliminary findings released Wednesday by the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration point to a possible cause of the May 19 spill that blackened popular beaches and created a 9-mile slick in the Pacific Ocean.
The agency said investigators found corrosion at the break site had degraded the pipe wall thickness to 1/16 of an inch, and that there was a 6-inch opening near the bottom of the pipe. Additionally, the report noted that the area that failed was close to three repairs made because of corrosion found in 2012 inspections.
The findings indicate 82 percent of the metal pipe wall had worn away.
"There is pipe that can survive 80 percent wall loss," said Richard Kuprewicz, president of Accufacts Inc., which investigates pipeline incidents. "When you're over 80 percent, there isn't room for error at that level."
The morning of the spill, operators in the company's Houston control center detected mechanical issues and shut down pumps on the line. The pumps were restarted about 20 minutes later and then failed, prompting another shutdown of the line.
Restarting the pumps could have led to a rupture, or a break in the line could have caused the pumps to fail, but Kuprewicz cautioned it's still too soon to determine what caused the failure.
In either case, a hole that size would have leaked at a high rate — even with the pumps off — and may not have been quickly detected by remote operators.
The agency documents said findings by metallurgists who examined the pipe wall thickness at the break site conflicted with the results of inspections conducted May 5 for operator Plains All American Pipeline. Those inspections pinpointed a 45 percent loss of wall thickness in the area of the pipe break, meaning they concluded the pipe was in far better condition.
Government inspectors "noted general external corrosion of the pipe body during field examination of the failed pipe segment," the report said.
Investigators found "this thinning of the pipe wall is greater than the 45 percent metal loss which was indicated" by the recent Plains All American inspections.
The agency ordered the company to conduct additional research and possible repairs on the line, which has been shut down indefinitely.
Plains All American said in a regulatory filing that there is no timeline to restart the line, which runs along the coast north of Santa Barbara. A company spokeswoman said there's no estimate yet of the cost of cleanup, which involves nearly 1,200 people.
The agency also ordered restrictions on a second stretch of pipeline, which the company had shut down May 19, restarted, then shut down again on Saturday.
That second line had similar insulation and welds to the line that spilled oil last month. It cannot be started until the company completes a series of steps, including testing.
The company said in a statement that it is committed to working with federal investigators "to understand the differences between these preliminary findings, to determine why the corrosion developed and to determine the cause of the incident."
Plains said it won't know the cause until the investigation, including the metallurgical analysis, is concluded.
The company has come under fire from California's U.S. senators, who issued a statement last week calling the response to the spill insufficient and demanding the pipeline company explain what it did, and when, after firefighters discovered the leak from the company's underground 24-inch pipe.
A commercial fisherman sued Plains in federal court Monday, alleging the environmental disaster would cause decades of harm to the shore. He is seeking class-action status and damages for business owners who have lost money because of the spill.
As of Tuesday, 36 sea lions, 9 dolphins and 87 birds in the area have died, officials said. Another 32 sea lions, 6 elephant seals and 58 birds were rescued and were being treated.
Popular state beaches and campgrounds polluted by the spill are closed until at least June 18.
Plains All American and its subsidiaries operate 17,800 miles of crude oil and natural gas pipelines across the country, according to federal regulators
The spill is also being investigated by federal, state and local prosecutors for possible violations of law.
Bus carrying Italian tourists collides with truck, killing 3
Bus carrying Italian tourists to Niagara Falls collides with truck on highway, killing 3
TOBYHANNA, Pa. (AP) -- A charter bus taking Italian tourists to Niagara Falls collided with a tractor-trailer that had crossed into oncoming traffic on a highway on Wednesday, killing the bus driver and two other people on the bus, police said. Four people were critically injured.
The crash occurred on Interstate 380 in the Pocono Mountains region in eastern Pennsylvania as the bus, which departed from New York, was about a quarter of the way to its first destination.
The mangled front end of the bus was upright on the highway but wedged into the side of the tractor-trailer, which was sheared in half. The cab of the truck came to rest on its side in the woods next to the road, one of its axles torn off.
The southbound tractor-trailer entered the northbound lanes of the divided highway, struck another truck and then was hit by the charter bus, said state police, who were investigating what caused the deadly chain of events Wednesday morning. A wide swath of grass was scraped away in the median.
Italian tour operator Viaggidea said there were 16 people on the bus: 14 passengers, a tour guide and the driver. Police said the driver, Alfredo Telemaco, of New York City, died at the scene along with two passengers.
The bus owner, Academy Bus, said the driver had more than a decade of experience with the company.
More than a dozen people were injured and taken to hospitals, where most were being treated for mild to moderate injuries. Monroe County coroner Robert Allen said the tractor-trailer driver, a Macomb, Oklahoma, man, didn't appear to have been severely injured.
Viaggidea spokeswoman Simona Nocifora said she did not have any information on the passengers, including where they were from in Italy.
After sightseeing in New York, the group was headed to Niagara Falls, then Toronto, Washington and Philadelphia, before returning to New York, according to an itinerary for the eight-day trip.
The tractor-trailer was owned by the Xtra Lease company. The company's attorney said officials did not know who was leasing the vehicle.
Johnny Walsh, who lives near the highway, told WCAU-TV that he heard a loud crash and "all of a sudden people were screaming."
Pop singer Gloria Estefan suffered a broken vertebra when a tractor-trailer crashed into her tour bus on the same stretch of highway in 1990 while heading to a concert in Syracuse, New York.
Wednesday's crash came less than a month after an Italian businessman died with seven other people when a speeding Amtrak train ran off the tracks in Philadelphia.
Southwest fares drop below $100 round trip in 72-hour sale
Southwest rolled out a 72-hour, nationwide fare sale Tuesday (June 2) in which the price of its flights are roughly based to distance. Dozens of the carrier's shortest routes are available for fares of less than $100 round trip.
The sale covers travel from Aug. 25 through Dec. 16, though some holiday periods are blacked out. And bargain hunters must act quick; the sale concludes at the end of the day Thursday (June 4).
Southwest has previously rolled out similar fare sales in which fares were pegged to mileage thresholds. In past years, for example, Southwest 's sales priced flights of 500 miles or less at $49 each way and increased from there. Flights of 501 to 1,000 miles cost $99 each way and flights of 1,001 to 1,500 miles cost $129 each way. Flights of more than 1,500 miles went for $149 each way.
While Southwest may have officially ended the precise mileage component of its big sales, this latest promotion appears to closely mimic those previous distance-based promotions. The carrier's four advertised sale-fare tiers — $49, $99, $129 and $149 each way — match the fares it offered on its distance-based sales of years past.
Whatever the details, travelers can snag advertised round-trip fares as low as $98 on short routes. Many routes, such as Chicago-Minneapolis, Los Angeles-San Francisco and Atlanta-Richmond, Va., showed fares as low as $98 (including taxes). Fares on longer flights appear to increase incrementally roughly in correlation to the distance flown.
But the scope of this Southwest sale appears to be more limited than its previous similar promotions. Some of the carrier's sub-500-mile routes – such as Atlanta-New Orleans, Baltimore-Charleston, S.C., and Denver-Albuquerque – were not being sold for the lowest $49 fares. Instead fares on those routes – and a number of Southwest's other short routes – were going for higher sale fares of $63 to $73 each way.
On the flip side, a small number of Southwest's other short routes – such as Chicago-Memphis and Denver-Omaha – were available for even less. Those routes were selling for just $44 each way. Five routes from California's Ontario airport were selling for $46 each way, including Las Vegas, Oakland and Phoenix.
Regardless of the fare and distance, deal-seekers will have to move fast to lock in those prices. Southwest's sale runs only through the end of the day Thursday (June 4), and the cheapest fares will disappear as they sell out.
For the short routes that are priced at $49 each way, that makes for round-trip fares of less than $100 on many city-pairs.
Among the sub-$100 options: Boston-Baltimore; Burbank, Calif.-Sacramento; Charlotte-Baltimore; Cleveland-Chicago Midway; Columbus, Ohio-Washington National; Dallas Love-New Orleans; Denver-Omaha; Detroit-Chicago Midway; Houston Hobby-Corpus Christi, Texas; El Paso-Austin; Grand Rapids, Mich.-St. Louis; Indianapolis-Kansas City; Las Vegas-San Diego; Los Angeles-Oakland; Memphis-Houston Hobby; Nashville-Pensacola, Fla.; New York LaGuardia-Akron/Canton, Ohio; Pittsburgh-Chicago Midway; San Jose, Calif.-Orange County, Calif.; San Francisco-Los Angeles and Spokane, Wash.-Boise.
Southwest's fares are blacked out around Labor Day (Sept. 3-5 and Sept. 7 are excluded) and around Thanksgiving (Nov. 2- through Dec. 1 are excluded). The lowest fares are not offered on Fridays and Sundays. Additionally, the days that the sale fares are offered are further restricted to Southwest's destinations in Florida, Nevada and Puerto Rico. The cheapest sale fares will disappear from flights on all routes as those fares begin to sell out.
Tickets must be purchased Thursday by 11:59 p.m. in the time zone of the originating city.
TSA Under Fire for Missing Airport SIDA Badges
The Transportation Security Administration has come under fire from U.S. senators in the wake of an investigation conducted by NBC 5 in Dallas/Fort Worth that revealed a shocking number of missing airport security badges in San Diego, Atlanta and presumably other airports across the country.
The NBC 5 investigation found that more than 270 Secure Identification Display Area (SIDA) badges went missing at San Diego International Airport over the past two years, while another 1,400 were either lost or stolen at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport over the same period of time.
"Clearly there are an awful lot of things falling through the cracks and there’s just no room for error when it comes to this issue. We need answers. They’re not providing them," said South Dakota senator and Transportation Committee chairman John Thune.
Despite a policy that requires employees who have lost a SIDA badge to notify airport authorities within 24 hours so that they can deactivate it, the NBC 5 investigation revealed that in some cases, several weeks or months had passed before a badge was reported missing.
The TSA points out that in addition to a SIDA badge, codes and/or handprints are required to gain access to secure areas at many airports across the U.S.
But in an effort to gain access to nationwide figures and to learn more about what the TSA is doing to combat the issue, Thune and two other senators serving on the Transportation Committee recently reached out to the agency in a letter demanding more transparency.
The senators issued their letter last month to former acting TSA administrator Melvin Carraway, who was reassigned by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Monday following a shocking security lapse.
According to NBC 5, they also planned to question Coast Guard Vice Admiral Peter Neffenger, who was nominated to lead the TSA by President Barack Obama.
Tampa airport set to add restaurant, retail options today
The “Captain Morgan” cocktail bar, built in the shape of a large pirate ship, are among the restaurant options being considered.
The Hillsborough Aviation Authority today could decide whether travelers to Tampa International Airport will be able to have a drink at a Gasparilla-style pirate ship, hoist a local craft brew, or enjoy dinner among various other options.
After accepting bids, officials today are expected to take a final vote on several airport concessions that will be installed as part of the airport’s $1 billion renovation of the terminals.
The “Captain Morgan” cocktail bar, built in the shape of a large pirate ship, are among the restaurant options being considered, including Columbia Cafe, Cigar City Brewing, Pei Wei and P.F. Changs.
Retailers also submitted bids. Among those that could be considered include Tampa-based fashion brand Black & Denim, Spanx, Ron Jon Surf Shop and Victoria’s Secret.
The meeting is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m.
Canadian 'sex tourist' who flew to Broward for teen sex being sentenced
A Canadian "sex tourist" who admitted he traveled to Fort Lauderdale to have sex with two teenage boys is facing 10 years to life in federal prison when he is sentenced this afternoon.
Rene Roberge, 48, wrote in one email that, after a near-death experience, he decided to live all his fantasies and indulge what he called his "perve dreams."
Roberge was arrested in November shortly after his flight landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
He had been communicating online for several weeks with a man Roberge thought was going to let him have sex with the man's 14-year-old son in Pompano Beach.
That arrangement was an undercover sting involving a fictional teen, arranged by Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents who posed as a 55-year-old dad.
But after Roberge was detained at the airport, he told federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations that he was also planning to travel on to Texas to have sex with a real 15-year-old boy he had also been communicating with online.
Investigators also found more than 150 child pornography images on Roberge's iPad, which he brought with him. Authorities said he also shared some of the child pornography images with the 15-year-old.
Roberge, a former TV soundman who lived in Sherbrooke in Quebec, pleaded guilty earlier this year to two counts of enticing a minor into sexual activity, one count of entering the U.S. to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor and one count of transporting child pornography.
Roberge's mother, his two brothers and sister-in-law wrote a letter, translated from French, to Chief U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore acknowledging that Roberge knew he had made "a big mistake" but seeking mercy for him.
The family suggested that he had been deeply affected by a severe heart condition and spent three weeks hovering between life and death in intensive care. Though he can now walk with a cane, they said Roberge was paralyzed from the waist down for some time after surgery.
"Is it a great emotion like this one that caused this unsettlement?" they wrote. "We do not know. Rene has lots of regrets; he is not a criminal. An error was made on his path."
Roberge's online profile described his interests as "looking for Dad how shares for a young boy." He joined groups online called "How sick and twisted are you?" and "Pervert Fantasies."
Federal prosecutors have asked the judge to impose a more severe sentence because the child pornography included images of a prepubescent minor; the material portrayed sadistic or masochistic conduct; and Roberge shared the material with the 15-year-old.
Prosecutors also asked the judge to consider a letter written by the adoptive mother of three of the underage brothers who appeared in some of the child pornography that Roberge downloaded from the Internet.
The boys were sexually assaulted and exploited by a foster parent in 2003 after they were taken from their biological parents because of abuse and neglect. The foster parent repeatedly raped the boys, forced them into sexual activity with other children and shared photographs of that abuse online with other perverts, the mother wrote in her letter.
"Every time a deranged pervert posts and re-posts these graphic images of our sons, our nightmare occurs again and again. For I know that someone is deriving sick sexual pleasure from viewing pictures of my sons being raped."
The woman, who is not identified in court records, said she wrote the letter to dispel the myth that sharing old child pornography online is a victimless crime. Her children feel like they are being exploited when they learn that another person is sharing the images of them being abused online, she wrote.
Roberge's sentencing is scheduled for Thursday afternoon in federal court in Miami. He has been jailed since his November arrest.
Spirit recruits hundreds of flight attendants
It's not often that a job interview starts with a happy dance, but hundreds of prospective Spirit Airlines flight attendants were doing just that Wednesday as the low-cost carrier kicked off its recruitment fair in Fort Lauderdale.
The pep rally of sorts — led by Greg McIntyre, Spirit's senior manager for Inflight — had the packed room of more than 500 recruits on their feet dancing to "Happy" by Pharrell Williams.
The energy was high as recruits of varying ethnicities and ages danced and hooted in excitement over the opportunities that lie ahead.
"We're hiring everywhere, so it's a great time to be here," Laurie Villa, Spirit's chief human resources officer told attendees. "We will hire over 600 flight attendants this year. We're well on our way, but we still have a good ways to go."
The flight attendant job fair is part of the Miramar-based carrier's overall plan to hire about 1,500 employees in 2015 as it prepares to take delivery of more aircraft and launch new destinations or expand key routes.
"You can be part of this growth. It's a very exciting time here [at Spirit]," she said.
Spirit recently took delivery of its 71st aircraft and will have 143 aircraft by 2021, Villa said. That's increased from a fleet of 65 Airbus aircraft as of December.
The airline is seeking to fill flight attendant positions at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and at other bases and also has jobs available in its customer support center, Villa said.
In addition to Fort Lauderdale, Spirit has flight attendant bases in Atlantic City, Detroit, Dallas-Fort Worth, Las Vegas and Chicago.
There are 50 immediate flight attendant openings at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood, said Maggie Espin-Christina, Spirit's senior manager of internal communications and recruiter.
Spirit is the third-busiest airline at the Fort Lauderdale airport with 17.4 percent of passenger traffic in March, according to the latest airport data.
In recent years, the carrier has experienced about 30 percent growth annually, and that pace is expected to continue, company officials have said.
In the first quarter, Spirit launched nine new nonstop routes and added Cleveland as its 57th destination.
Last year, Spirit began service to 23 new markets and added Kansas City to its route map.
"We are the fastest growing airline in the U.S. right now," Villa told recruits Wednesday.
In a call for flight attendants this year, the low-cost carrier said it's "on the lookout for fun and friendly, relaxed and confident, professional men and women to become the face of Spirit."
Besides those qualities, flight attendants must be able to work flexible hours, communicate effectively, be at least 21 years old, possess a valid passport, have a high school diploma or GED certificate and be able to lift 40 pounds from floor to shoulder level.
Flight attendants also need to have a customer-focus mindset and have a tolerance for stress, said McIntyre, Spirit's inflight manager.
At Wednesday's job fair, recruits who successfully completed the three-phase interview process would be offered a job. If they accepted, they would begin a four-week training session in Fort Lauderdale on June 23, Spirit recruiter Espin-Christina said.
Among the hopefuls was Cornelius Edwards, 30, of West Palm Beach.
"I love the airline industry, and I'm looking for longevity and Spirit seems like a company that could offer that," he said of his reasons for applying. "Customer service is my life, and Spirit seems like a very fun airline."
The hiring fairs are taking place at a time when Spirit and its unionized flight attendants are in negotiations to iron out a new contract agreement. The flights attendants have so far voted twice to reject tentative agreements reached by the airline and union leaders.
Spirit plans to host more job fairs in other U.S. cities and will return to Fort Lauderdale in the fall, Villa said. Invitations are required to attend.
To get an invitation, applicants must complete an online application and pass an initial assessment.
Amex Centurion Lounge opens Thursday at Miami International Airport
American Express card members will soon have an exclusive lounge where they can relax and rejuvenate between flights when traveling through Miami International Airport.
The new American Express Centurion Lounge is set to open Thursday in the North Terminal of the Miami airport near Gate D-12.
Domestic and international travelers with a valid Amex credit card can gain access to the lounge and all its offerings, including food and drinks, by purchasing a $50 day pass upon arrival. Amex Platinum and Centurion card members receive complimentary entrance and services as part of their card membership benefits.
The lounge will offer locally-inspired cuisine with menu selections curated and designed by South Florida chef Michelle Bernstein, a spokeswoman said Wednesday during a tour of the MIA location. The bar features signature cocktails, premium spirits and specialty wines.
Members can also enjoy 15-minute spa services such as chair massages and mini-manicures, and will have access to high-speed Wi-Fi, personal computers and noise-buffering work spaces.
The 8,000-square-foot lounge also offers a family room with entertainment for children, shower suites and luggage lockers. Amex member services representatives will also be on hand to assist with travel changes or future trip planning.
All of the lounge's offerings are available on a first-come, first-served basis and may not be reserved in advance, according to Amex.
The décor of MIA's Amex Centurion lounge offers travelers a look into Miami's culture and history. Walls are adorned with photo prints of celebrities such as PitBull, Jackie Gleason, Jimmy Buffett and Ernest Hemmingway.
MIA is the fifth U.S. airport, following LaGuardia in New York, McCarran International in Las Vegas, Dallas/Fort Worth International and San Francisco International, to feature a Centurion Lounge.
Lawsuit: Man racks up $48,500 in gift cards via glitch in hotel rewards program
ST. PETERSBURG — It was the glitch that kept on giving.
That's how Choice Hotels International, one of the world's largest hotel chains, portrays a flaw in its online reservations system in a lawsuit accusing a St. Petersburg man of fraudulently redeeming gift cards worth $48,500 in a rewards program for loyal customers.
Robert Chat, 38, discovered the Choice Hotels booking system didn't erase his rewards points when he canceled a reservation, the suit said. So Chat began making, and quickly canceling, hundreds of reservations from October to January, then redeeming gift cards earned as a "reward," Choice Hotel alleges. Chat denies wrongdoing.
The gift cards could be used at a variety of stores and restaurants, including Dunkin' Donuts, Home Depot, Target and Applebee's.
Choice Hotels filed suit against Chat on May 21 in Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court seeking to recover its losses and additional damages, and said Chat knew or should have known that people don't get rewarded by hotel franchises for declining to spend their money on a room.
The points "are offered as a reward in exchange for actually staying at Choice Hotels, not simply for making a reservation," the lawsuit said.
Officials at Choice Hotels, a chain that franchises 6,300 hotels that include Econo Lodge, Comfort Inn and Clarion, among others, declined to comment Tuesday.
Chat, 38, who said he had not been aware of the lawsuit until a reporter asked him about it, wrote in an email to the Tampa Bay Times that he received less than 10 percent of the $48,500 in gift cards alleged in the lawsuit.
"I'll be hiring a lawyer tomorrow to fight the suit as there was nothing done illegal nor was anything done in malice," Chat said late Tuesday. "I stayed at over 1,100 Choice hotels in the last five years. … I worked with their bonus structure to obtain points."
He added, "I'm not even computer literate. If I obtained more rewards than allowed, it's on their end, not mine. As I've stayed in their hotels exclusively for over six years, points do accumulate."
It is unclear what Chat does for a living. Chat is listed by the state as president of Dragonsong Weapons Inc., a company that makes and sells swords. It is unclear if the company is still in operation. Articles of incorporation were filed in 2010, but there have been no corporate filings since, state records show.
Choice Hotels said Chat had been a customer of its hotels and had "actually stayed at" several before he discovered the flaw in the reservation system.
Like most other hotel chains, Choice Hotels operates a rewards program to keep customers coming back. It calls the program Choice Privileges.
"Our points will really add up, fast and freely," Choice Hotels boasts online. Earn "points for that little something to make today extra special — like a coffee to perk you up or a song for your morning drive."
The lawsuit said the rules of the program make it clear that customers earn the points for "actually staying in a Choice Hotel room and paying for the room in full."
"Frequent-stay programs are common throughout the industry and neither Choice nor its competitors offer rewards for frequent reservations," the lawsuit said.
An attorney for Choice Hotels sent a March 12 letter to Chat demanding he pay triple damages to the company within 30 days, which the lawyer said is allowed under Florida law for cases involving civil theft. Choice Hotels said that meant Chat owes it $145,500.
The suit, which does not indicate if any other customers took advantage of the glitch, said Chat did not respond to the demand letter.
Promotions and loyalty programs have become a staple of American commerce. So too are tales of consumers who jump at the chance to take a promotion to the extreme.
One of the best-known cases involved a California civil engineer who in 1999 became something of a cult hero when he noticed at the local supermarket a promotion by Healthy Choice allowing consumers to earn 500 to 1,000 frequent-flier miles if they sent in the bar codes from 10 of the company's products.
David Phillips, according to published reports, purchased $3,150 worth of pudding to successfully earn $150,000 worth of free airline mileage — more than 1.2 million miles worth.
Puerto Rico developer plans first Marriott AC Hotel in Orlando
A Puerto Rican developer is planning to build the first Marriott AC Hotel in the Orlando area, near Mall at Millenia.
The AC brand features “sophisticated European-inspired aesthetics,” according to the brand’s website. They were built mostly overseas until recently. The new plan in Orlando calls for 254 units on just over four acres at 5450 Millenia Lakes Blvd.
The plan was filed with the city by a Puerto Rico-based company named Island Hospitality LLC. The contact listed for the company is Jaime Morgan Stubbe. That’s also the name of the former executive director of the Puerto Rico Maritime Authority, who is now a real estate developer. But attempts to contact him or the company were not immediately successful.
Another new AC Hotel was set to open this summer in Miami Beach. The hotel chain was originally named for its founder Spanish hotelier Antonio Catalan, before Marriott acquired it.
The architect on the project is identified as Kobi Karp of Miami Beach. Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc. is the engineering firm, while Altamonte Springs-based Shannon Surveying is the surveyor.
The world's most popular amusement park is ...
(CNN)The home of Mickey Mouse, Cinderella and "Frozen's" Elsa and Anna, it's touted as the happiest place on Earth.
And it's the most popular -- at least among amusement parks.
The Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida welcomed more than 19 million visitors in 2014, an increase of 4% over 2013, according to a report released Wednesday (PDF).
Amusement park attendance is on the rise around the world.
There were 223 million visits to the top 25 theme and amusement parks worldwide, up 4.1% from 2013, according to the Themed Entertainment Association and AECOM global attractions attendance report. The index ranks the 25 most-visited amusement and theme parks around the world, based on attendance figures compiled by AECOM.
Disney dominated the list.
Disney parks in the United States, Europe and Asia made up nine of the top 10 parks and held 11 of the top 25 spots. Universal Studios' theme parks came in second place, with one park in the top 10 list and four in the top 25 list. SeaWorld held one spot in the top 25.
Bill Vervaeke, CDME
West Palm Beach, FL 33411
(561) 795-5912 (Office & Facsimile)
(561) 318-9089 (Cellular)
(WAV: Oh, sure “Carnival emphasized that this bottled beverage ban is not a ploy to increase onboard revenues” really?)
Carnival to Ban Carry-On Bottled Beverages
In an effort to stop liquor smuggling, Carnival Cruise Line is prohibiting its passengers from bringing bottled beverages onboard effective July 9.
Carnival says it’s implementing the bottled beverage ban for two main reasons. First, it slows down the boarding process due to security checks for contraband booze. Second, it can lead to behavioral problems caused by overconsumption.
“Bottled beverages are the most common means by which guests attempt to smuggle alcohol on board, which necessitates that bottles be individually examined by security personnel,” Carnival said. “This bogs down the embarkation process and requires security resources dedicated to checking bottled beverages. Most importantly, when behavioral issues occur on board and are ultimately investigated, smuggled alcohol often appears to be a factor.”
Cruise passengers who want to drink booze without paying shipboard prices get very creative in their smuggling efforts, sometimes going so far as to fill mouthwash bottles with liquor and tinting it with food coloring so it looks like the original product. Or, they’ll carefully remove some bottles of water from a package, fill them with booze, and replace them so the bottles and packaging look unopened.
Such smuggling has spawned a cottage industry of flasks, plastic bladders and even fake beer bellies that store booze and are said to be undetectable by security devices. Google the topic and you’ll find a plethora of advice columns and YouTube videos.
However, cruise lines — and it affects virtually all of them — have caught on and now inspect bottles to confiscate the booze. Carnival will continue to check mouthwash and other personal/grooming products in bottles as well as other apparatus designed to smuggle alcohol.
Yet Carnival said it realizes many guests carry aboard bottled water or cans of soda, and will allow small quantities. The line also is greatly reducing the cost of buying bottled water onboard.
“We will continue to allow up to 12 unopened cans or cartons of water, sodas and non-alcoholic beverages per person to be brought on board during embarkation,” the line said. “Guests can now purchase a 12-pack of bottled water from Carnival at a price of $2.99 plus tax online prior to their cruise or $4.99 plus gratuities once on board. We sincerely apologize for any disappointment these changes may cause. However, we firmly believe these changes will ultimately benefit all guests.”
Passengers age 21 and older can, however, bring aboard one 750-milliliter bottle of unopened wine or champagne in carry-on baggage on embarkation day. If they choose to consume it in a restaurant or bar, they will be charged a $15 corkage fee.
All liquor, beer, other forms of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages outside of these exceptions are prohibited in both carry-on and checked luggage and will be confiscated and discarded with no compensation provided. All alcohol purchased in ports of call or onboard shops will be returned on the morning of debarkation.
Guests also are prohibited from bringing large coolers onboard since it’s an impediment to the boarding and security process, Carnival said. They can bring onboard personal-sized coolers, no larger than 12-by-12-by-12 inches to store small quantities of non-alcoholic beverages and/or medications.
Carnival emphasized that this bottled beverage ban is not a ploy to increase onboard revenues, as some will undoubtedly accuse. “In fact, we do not anticipate any increase in revenue as a result of this policy change, particularly given the significant reduction in price we have instituted for 12-packs of bottled water,” the line said.
Carnival is notifying booked guests and travel agents today.
“Bottled beverages are the most common source of attempted transport of alcohol on board,” Carnival said. “Often times, we find guests transporting alcohol onboard through unauthorized means, resulting in unmonitored consumption of alcohol. Unfortunately, this has led to behavioral and safety related concerns.”
TSA Fails to Identify 73 Employees with Terrorism Ties
The embattled Transportation Security Administration – already under heavy scrutiny after an undercover investigation revealed that agents were able to sneak fake explosives and other banned items and weapons past TSA screeners on 67 of 70 attempts – is under fire again.
However, the agency might not be completely at fault this time.
NBC News is reporting that a Department of Homeland Security Inspector General report found that the TSA failed to identify 73 aviation employees with links to terrorism who have active clearance badges.
The employees – not named by the TSA – worked for major airlines, airport vendors and other aviation-related employers.
“In addition to initially vetting every application for new credentials, TSA recurrently vetted aviation workers with access to secured areas of commercial airports every time the Consolidated Terrorist Watchlist was updated," the report found.
However, the Inspector General noted one key issue.
“…TSA did not identify 73 individuals with terrorism-related category codes because TSA is not authorized to receive all terrorism-related information under current interagency watchlisting policy,” the report said.
According to NBC, the report recommended that TSA "request additional watchlist data, require that airports improve verification of applicants' right to work, revoke credentials when the right to work expires, and improve the quality of vetting data."
This comes a week after the head of the Transportation Security Administration was replaced by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.
Johnson made the move to reassign TSA acting administrator Melvin Carraway after an undercover investigation revealed a shocking lapse in security among TSA screeners.
In 67 of 70 attempts – more than 95 percent – undercover agents were able to sneak fake explosives and other banned items and weapons past TSA screeners.
ABC News first reported the findings.
The 67 successful attempts included one instance in which an undercover agent set off the security alarm, according to the Washington D.C.-based publication The Hill, yet was allowed to continue on after a pat-down – even though he had a fake bomb taped to his back.
Florida leaders debate hold on local rules for ride-share businesses
TALLAHASSEE — The Senate wants to temporarily freeze local governments from making new rules regarding ride-sharing services such as Uber, but the House Justice Appropriations Subcommittee on Tuesday did not match a $10,000 budget proposal for a study of such app-based businesses that the Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Subcommittee offered Monday.
That means the Uber proposal could end up being resolved by Senate Appropriations Chairman Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon, and House Appropriations Chairman Rep. Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’ Lakes. The $10,000 would fund a study by the Legislature’s Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability to look into the “positive” impact app-based ride-sharing services have on reducing drunken driving in Florida. The study would need to be completed by April 1, 2016.
As the study is underway, local governments would be prohibited from imposing new rules against Uber and other app-based transportation network services, which have been heavily lobbying lawmakers this year.
During this spring’s regular legislative session, lawmakers failed to advance a House proposal for statewide regulations that would have overridden local rules for the fast-growing transportation networks. Also, lawmakers did not take action on proposed insurance requirements for the ride-sharing companies.
(WAV: Yes, indeed, this is a travel news story.)
US Ousts Russia as World's Top Oil, Gas Producer in BP Report
The U.S. has taken Russia’s crown as the world’s biggest oil and natural-gas producer, illustrating the seismic shifts in the global energy landscape caused by America’s shale fields.
U.S. oil production rose to an all-time high last year, gaining 1.6 million barrels a day, according to BP Plc’s Statistical Review of World Energy released on Wednesday. Gas output also rose, putting America ahead of Russia as a producer of the hydrocarbons combined.
The data showing the U.S.’s emergence as the world’s top driller confirms a trend that’s helped the world’s largest economy slash imports, caused a slump in global energy prices and shifted the country’s foreign policy priorities.
“We are truly witnessing a changing of the guard of global energy suppliers,” BP’s Chief Economist Spencer Dale said in a presentation. “The implications of the shale revolution for the U.S. are profound.”
The other major shift in at the BP report is China’s energy consumption growing at the slowest pace since the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s as the economy slows and the country tries to lessen its reliance on heavy industry.
“Growth in some of China’s most energy-intensive sectors, such as steel, iron and cement — which had thrived during China’s rapid industrialization — virtually collapsed in 2014,” said Dale, a former Bank of England policy maker who joined BP last year.
Economic Change
In the U.S., the boom in oil and gas production has started to change the economy profoundly. Cheap fuel has seen manufacturing return to the U.S. as the country produced about 90 percent of the energy it consumed last year.
Last year, imports equaled 1 percent of GDP, according to BP’s data. In 2007, just before the financial crisis, U.S. energy imports accounted for about half of the current account deficit of 5 percent of GDP.
Shale drillers from Exxon Mobil Corp. to Chesapeake Energy Corp. spent about $120 billion last year in the U.S., more than double the amount five years earlier.
The U.S. increase in oil production last year, helping it to overtake Saudi Arabia as a crude producer, was the first time a country has raised production by at least 1 million barrels a day for three consecutive years, BP said.
Among other producers outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Canada and Brazil also posted record production last year, prompting OPEC’s policy shift of ditching price support for defending market share.
On the demand side, countries outside the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development accounted for all of the net growth in global consumption of 0.8 million barrels a day, or 0.8 percent, last year, BP said. Chinese consumption growth, though slower, still increased 390,000 barrels a day, the biggest increase in the world.
Oil consumption in developed nations dropped 1.2 percent, the eighth decrease in the past nine years. World natural gas consumption grew 0.4 percent last year, compared with the 10- year average of 2.4 percent.
The world’s coal use also increased 0.4 percent, slower than the 10-year average annual growth of 2.9 percent, with consumption in China almost slowing as the nation seeks to cut pollution and use more gas for power generation. Coal’s share of primary energy consumption fell to 30 percent.
EU commits $133 million for Latin America, Caribbean
EU commits $133 million in investment aid for Latin American, Caribbean nations at summit
BRUSSELS (AP) -- The European Union has committed 118 million euros ($133 million) in investment support for Latin America and Caribbean nations at the start of their two-day summit.
The EU Commission said Wednesday that the combination of loans, grants and other financial operations would seek to enhance trans-Atlantic cooperation.
The executive of the 28-nation EU said the support will center on the transport, energy and environment sectors in the nations.
Spanish air controllers stage 2nd day of partial strikes
Spanish air controllers stage second day of partial strikes, no report yet of cancelations
MADRID (AP) -- Spain's air traffic controllers have staged the second set of partial strikes but there are no immediate reports of major flight delays or cancelations.
A spokesman for Spain's air navigation company, Enaire, said 1,217 flights were to take place during the strike periods between 10 a.m. and noon and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday but there were no flight disruptions so far.
He said flight punctuality was 98 percent on Monday, the first strike day. He spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with company policy.
Government-imposed minimum staffing services of 70 percent have minimized the strike effect.
The stoppages are also to take place June 12 and 14.
The USCA controllers' union called the strikes to protest penalties imposed on members after a 24-hour strike in 2010.
High-speed rail brings fears of gutted communities, noise
Residents along proposed California high-speed rail line fear noise, falling property values
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- California Gov. Jerry Brown has compared the state's high-speed rail line to construction of the Golden Gate Bridge and the great cathedrals of Europe. Isobel Cook doesn't see it that way.
The 13-year-old who raises chickens, turkeys and ducks in the unincorporated community of Acton told members of the California High-Speed Rail Authority Tuesday that she feared the $68 billion project traveling at speeds up to 220 mph would divide her hometown.
"I love my home," the teenager said, dressed in 4-H attire with medals for prize-winning animals she raised arrayed on her cap. "I don't want it to change."
Acton, on the edge of the Angeles National Forest, sits on a proposed segment that would run from the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank to the high-desert city of Palmdale. Cook was one of about two dozen area residents who told the panel the train would be a threat to rural lifestyles that prize serenity and unbroken vistas.
The panel is considering possible routes through that area.
There were complaints about potential harm to groundwater and home values, hints of lawsuits to come and indignation that the government wasn't listening to the people it serves.
Many who testified urged the authority to tunnel through the area north of Los Angeles, leaving the community unscathed. The state is considering some options that include tunneling through the Angeles National Forest.
"We'd like to see you crawl into a hole in Palmdale and crawl out of it in Burbank, said developer Christopher A. Croisdale, an Acton resident.
The train, Brown's signature project, has been beset by delays and questions about funding.
Demolition and engineering work has been underway for months around Fresno, one of the hubs on the first stretch. But the agency is behind schedule in acquiring the land needed to begin construction, and the state has only found a fraction of the money needed before tracks will be installed.
The board's moves on Tuesday included the approval of a seven-year, $700 million contract with consulting firm Parsons Brinckerhoff, Inc. The firm, which has already had a key consulting role in the project for years, was chosen over competitor Bechtel Infrastructure Corporation.
Tuesday's gathering comes in the wake of a heated meeting last month in the Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, which is home to some of the train's most vocal opponents. In the city of San Fernando, elected officials joined residents in confronting state officials, going so far as to set up their own public address system in the auditorium to express their grievances.
San Fernando Mayor Joel Fajardo told the panel the line would cleave the community in two, potentially leaving it bankrupt. He argued that the panel was exploiting working-class areas like San Fernando, while bypassing Beverly Hills and other wealthier enclaves.
"You would divide the city in half with a 20-foot wall," he said.
The panel also heard endorsements. Union members talked of the need for jobs in a state still recovering from the recession. Palmdale Mayor James Ledford Jr. said the line would connect his city "to where the jobs are in Southern California."
Wealthy communities in the San Francisco Bay Area and farmers in the Central Valley have also raised concerns about the project.
Residents in the Silicon Valley forced the planned train to use existing commuter rail tracks into San Francisco at lower speeds. Farmers have sued and refused to sell their fields at prices they considered too low.
Before the meeting in downtown Los Angeles, opponents of the line crowded under a portico, below a banner that said Brown's legacy would be "displacement, destruction and devastation."
Airlines could soon shrink the size of luggage you’re allowed to carry on
It’s a happy day for luggage manufacturers. The world’s major airlines could soon be changing their requirements for carry-on luggage, potentially forcing people to buy new bags.
Working with airlines and aircraft manufacturers including Boeing and Airbus, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), a trade association, unveiled a new best-size guideline on Tuesday for carry-on bags at 21.5 inches tall by 13.5 inches wide and 7.5 inches deep. That's 21 percent smaller than the size currently permitted by American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines.
Eight major international airlines have already decided to adopt the new rules: Air China, Avianca, Azul, Cathay Pacific, China Southern, Emirates, Lufthansa and Qatar. "We’ll certainly be announcing more big carriers," said Chris Goater, a spokesman for the transport association.
Still, the guideline is non-binding, and carriers are free to ignore the suggestion or adjust it. Goater stressed that nobody should feel compelled to run out and buy new luggage today.
American Airlines has no immediate plans to change its baggage program, a spokesman said. Delta and United have yet to respond to requests for comment.
"Many airlines have existing baggage size suggestions for carry ons, and those are not affected by what we've announced today," Goater said.
The airlines have begun working with luggage manufacturers to produce new bags meeting the dimensions that will be labeled “Cabin OK.”
The guideline is designed to allow every passenger to have room for their carry-on bags in a plane of at least 120 seats. Currently, 20 passengers have to check their bags because overhead compartments are full.
The idea is to set a standard size that consumers can be confident will be allowed on most major airlines. "If you've got a Cabin OK bag ... you can fit it in. And it'll be someone else's bag that has to go in the hold, not yours," Goater said.
“What we’re trying to do is take away that uncertainty from the 120th passenger in line – will I be able to bring my bag into the cabin?” said Perry Flint, another spokesman for IATA.
The new guideline is about half an inch shorter and narrower than many airlines allow. But the biggest change is that it is significantly shallower, by an inch and a half — meaning no more overstuffing your suitcase.
(WAV: Okay, so maybe it isn’t pure travel news. But, I found it interesting news.)
SpaceX founder files with government to provide Internet service from space
Elon Musk’s space company has asked the federal government for permission to begin testing on an ambitious project to beam Internet service from space, a significant step forward for an initiative that could create another major competitor to Comcast, AT&T and other telecom companies.
The plan calls for launching a constellation of 4,000 small and cheap satellites that would beam high-speed Internet signals to all parts of the globe, including its most remote regions. Musk has said the effort “would be like rebuilding the Internet in space.”
If successful, the attempt could transform SpaceX, based in Hawthorne, Calif., from a pure rocket company into a massive high-speed-Internet provider that would take on major companies in the developed world but also make first-time customers out of the billions of people who are currently not online.
The idea of saturating Earth with Internet signals from space has long been the dream of prominent business tycoons, including Bill Gates in the 1990s. But many of these ventures have run into obstacles that Musk is working to avoid. Musk has his own rocket, and he has said his swarm of satellites will be more efficient and inexpensive than relying on a handful of big devices that are difficult to replace.
Dish Network and DirecTV, for instance, have for years relied on a few older satellites that are cast much farther into space and can serve only specific regions such as the United States. SpaceX’s web of satellites would wrap around Earth in low orbit, handing off Internet signals to one another to make connections more reliable and to reach more areas.
The filing, made with the Federal Communications Commission late last month, is the first public glimpse into how Musk will move ahead with the project.
Musk isn’t the only billionaire entrepreneur who is pursuing such an idea. Virgin’s Richard Branson has partnered with a company with similar ambitions. Both ventures would have to succeed where many have failed.
Facebook recently abandoned its plan to build a $500 million satellite that would provide Internet service across the globe, according to the Information, a tech site.
And a previous effort by a firm called LightSquared to use satellites to provide wireless service fell apart three years ago, despite initial backing from the FCC. Military officials complained at the time that the technology interfered with the radar used by planes — a problem that shouldn’t hinder Musk’s effort, industry officials said.
Musk’s FCC filing proposes tests starting next year. If all goes well, the service could be up and running in about five years.
The satellites would be deployed from one of SpaceX’s rockets, the Falcon 9. Once in orbit, the satellites would connect to ground stations at three West Coast facilities. The purpose of the tests is to see whether the antenna technology used on the satellites will be able to deliver high-speed Internet to the ground without hiccups.
Despite a history of failed satellite ventures, wealthy individuals and companies are pouring fresh funds into exploring satellite-based communications. Google and Fidelity recently invested $1 billion into SpaceX, in part to support the satellite broadband Internet project.
A company called OneWeb, backed by Virgin’s Branson and founded by Greg Wyler, has similar ambitions: “OneWeb’s mission is to bring the entire world online to improve quality of life and spur economic and national development where it’s needed most,” Wyler has said.
Wyler was also involved in launching O3b Networks, which already has 12 satellites in space, providing Internet to 40 customers, including Royal Caribbean International, the Republic of Congo and the Papua New Guinea University of Technology, an O3b spokeswoman said.
Some analysts say that while the technology appears promising, the basic logistics are difficult to overcome. In the mid-1990s, Teledesic, a company funded by Gates, legendary wireless executive Craig McCaw and a Saudi prince, tried to employ a similar plan to use low-Earth-orbiting satellites to provide Internet access. But costs ballooned to more than $9 billion, and the venture ultimately collapsed.
Voices: In Atlantic City, the gold's turning to sand
ATLANTIC CITY — When casino gambling came to this fading beach resort four decades ago, it looked like salvation. "The sand's turning to gold,'' observed a character in the Bruce Springsteen song named after the city.
Now the process is reversing itself.
The city's prospects this summer are the grimmest since 1978, when the first major legalization of casino gambling outside Las Vegas rescued what was becoming a slum by the sea.
Atlantic City is famous for innovations like the Boardwalk (1870), the amusement pier (1882) and salt water taffy (circa 1883). It hosted the first Miss America pageant in 1921 and the Democratic National Convention in 1964. The names of its very streets are immortalized on the Monopoly board.
By the end of last summer, however, it didn't seem things could get any worse. Two of the 12 casinos had closed, and gaming revenues continued to shrink in the face of competition from an ever-growing number of casinos in nearby states.
But Atlantic City always manages to surprise, for better or worse. This past off season offered plenty of the latter.
Revel, a $2 billion hotel casino that was supposed to revive Atlantic City when it opened just two years earlier, closed. It was then bought at a fire sale price by a Florida investor whose dispute over an electrical bill plunged the state's second-tallest building into darkness for three weeks before power was provisionally restored.
Revel, which New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie once called "a game-changer for Atlantic City,'' will be closed all summer, maybe longer.
Another casino, Trump Plaza, closed last September. A third, Trump Taj Mahal, filed for bankruptcy and stayed open only after an 11th-hour deal with its unions. The Caesar's unit that owns two other casinos also filed for bankruptcy.
The biggest off-season shocker was Stockton State University's purchase of the shuttered Showboat Casino Hotel for $18 million. But the school's plan to turn the place into its "Island Campus" was blocked by the Taj, which is next to the Showboat and says it doesn't want students sneaking into its casino — something that apparently didn't worry the school
In the midst of this, the Stockton president who did the deal (without running it past the State Controller's office or securing the Taj's agreement) announced plans to retire, and then went on emergency medical leave.
This has frustrated attempts by legislators to ask him: What the hell were you thinking?
In what passes here for good news, the same guy who bought the Revel has agreed to buy the Showboat (and for a while talked about running a power cable from it to neighboring Revel).
The city, facing a $400 million budget deficit and the loss of a large part of its tax base, has been placed under a state fiscal monitor and forced to lay off employees, including 80% of its parks and recreation department.
About 8,000 casino or hotel employees have lost their jobs, spreading the misery across South Jersey.
This all is bad news for Christie, the could be Republican presidential candidate who tied himself to A.C.'s revival. Now even he seems to accept the inevitability of at least one casino in North Jersey, ending this city's in-state monopoly.
Fourth of July, traditionally the biggest weekend of the season, promises to be less than celebratory this year, at least if you remember the glory days.
People will fill A.C.'s Steel Pier at dusk to watch fireworks explode over the water. But it's hard to see how America's first great beach resort, which survived the advent of air conditioning, jet travel and the backyard swimming pool, can come back this time.
Airport con man who made $22,000 a month by ripping off travelers finally caught after 15 years
For fifteen years, Andrew Gradon ran the same scam in airports around Europe, collecting an estimated $22,000 every month from well-meaning travelers. Even more remarkably, he managed to stay ahead of the police even though he always used his real name, and his passport picture has been widely circulated for the past five years. But that finally came to an end earlier this year, when he was arrested mid-con in the Munich airport.
Gradon never changed his method – and why would he, when it kept working? He approached well-dressed women (and the occasional man) in more than a half-dozen European airports, telling them that he’d missed his flight and he needed €40 ($45) to rebook so (and here’s where the violins would begin to swell) he could get home to Newcastle, England in time to tuck his children into bed. His credit card wasn’t working, he’d say, but he’d give them his real name and a very fake Yahoo email address, promising to repay them. He never did, which shouldn’t have been surprising considering two key clues that should’ve tipped everyone off: 1) No airline would let you change your flight for $45 and 2) who even has a Yahoo email address?).
Five years ago, quick-thinking Swedish businessman Tommy Forsell snapped a picture of Gradon’s passport after wondering whether he’d just been swindled. Forsell told the media:
He wasn’t wearing a tie but he had on some kind of jacket and he looked a bit stressed. He did a really good role, he was very convincing […] I handed over €40 and he was going to send me contact details, and I took a photo of his passport. When he left I felt sorry for him and hoped he got home.
Gradon’s picture and identity were widely reported in the press (including a first-hand report from a writer from The Economist who was ripped off) and in forums where his victims shared their stories and sightings. That didn’t stop him. Instead, he started taunting everyone else back. In 2009, he responded to a forum post about himself, writing:
You got ripped off and can’t handle it. At least I give you the choice to say yes or no. Not like some people out there.
American Airlines restarting flights down under
After a gap of nearly 24 years, American Airlines is to resume flights to Australia.
American will launch a daily flight from Los Angeles to Sydney from December 17 in direct competition with rivals United Airlines and Delta.
"With both the US and Australian economies growing, we see strong demand for travel between the two regions, and we're introducing more choices to meet the demand of our customers," said American chief executive Doug Parker.
The new service will mean some changes to American's transpacific alliance with partner Qantas.
Qantas will reduce its Los Angeles schedule slightly and resume San Francisco-Sydney flights from December 20 after a four year gap.
In a joint media briefing Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce said the two airlines will add about 9% to seat capacity on US-Australia routes.
Hollywood mad over Margaritaville ad's reference to Fort Lauderdale
Margaritaville, fans say, might be just the ticket to put Hollywood on the map.
But a recent promotional email describing the Jimmy Buffett-themed resort as being in Greater Fort Lauderdale has left Hollywood in a huff.
"Fort Lauderdale did not ante up the money to make this project a reality. Hollywood did," Jim Stoodley, one of Hollywood's miffed residents, wrote in an email to City Hall.
Margaritaville developer Lon Tabatchnick says the wording was chosen to differentiate Hollywood from its more famous counterpart in California.
"We want people to find us," Tabatchnick said. "If someone is in Sioux City, Iowa, when they hear Hollywood, they think California."
The ad, to which so many took offense, says: "Now Taking Reservations! The all-new Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort will open Summer 2015 on the legendary Hollywood Beach Broadwalk in Greater Fort Lauderdale, but you can book your stay now!"
The ad has since been changed, trading the words "Greater Fort Lauderdale" for "South Florida."
"He better change it," Stoodley said. "If he wants to use Fort Lauderdale, I think Fort Lauderdale should pay Hollywood half of the money we spent."
Margaritaville's $147 million resort is being built on beachfront land owned by Hollywood. The deal has the developer leasing the land for 99 years and Hollywood's redevelopment agency kicking in $23 million.
Broward County tourism czar Nicki Grossman defended the ad.
"The folks at Margaritaville know what sells and that's Greater Fort Lauderdale," said Grossman, whose title is president of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau. "The smart hotel and the smart restaurant and the smart attraction is going to follow the brand."
Still, angry emails from residents were flying through cyberspace, prompting four city commissioners to complain about the original wording.
In an email to the city manager, Commissioner Traci Callari said the ad "hit a nerve."
Commissioner Patty Asseff griped as well.
"We've made an investment in Margaritaville," Asseff said during a recent meeting. "We did all this to brand the city of Hollywood. We didn't do this so we could brand Fort Lauderdale."
Commissioner Peter Hernandez chimed in, saying he considered the Greater Fort Lauderdale reference "insulting."
Commissioner Kevin Biederman said he was not at all surprised by the wording.
"Any way we can get people here, we should get people here," he said Tuesday. "Part of me says that is what Margaritaville is trying to do. In another sense, Hollywood can't make a name for itself when a $150 million hotel is advertising itself as being in Fort Lauderdale. Now we are cast in the shadow of Fort Lauderdale."
Tabatchnick seemed taken aback by the brouhaha.
"I want the same thing the residents do," Tabatchnick told the Sun Sentinel. "I want to put Hollywood on the map. We're on the same team here."
Asseff has since chilled out, after a chat with Tabatchnick.
"He wants people to know it's near Fort Lauderdale," she said. "His goal is to fill the beds. I think after it's up and running, he will put Hollywood, Florida, on the map."
Wheelchair attendants strike at FLL airport
They prayed, chanted motivational slogans and shared their stories as they gathered in solidarity on the picket line Tuesday.
About 50 wheelchair attendants at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport rallied in the heat, some dogding raindrops during a one-day strike to protest what they called the "poverty wages" paid by their employer and other labor related concerns.
The strikers are employed by G2 Secure Staff, which services Southwest and Virgin America airlines, according to the Service Employees International Union.
The SEIU 32BJ, which already represents cleaners at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood, is helping the G2 workers in their efforts to become unionized, a representative said.
G2 officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Representatives of Southwest and Virgin said the strike did not affect customers in need of wheelchair service.
"Our flights and services are not impacted by labor disputes, and those with special needs will continue to receive" service, Southwest spokeswoman Michelle Agnew in an email.
G2's wheelchair attendants earn $8.05 plus tips with limited benefits, and many work multiple jobs, according to the SEIU. In contrast, other workers at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood earn up to $13.20, and their G2 counterparts at Miami International Airport earn as much as $14.27 per hour.
The G2 wheelchair agents in Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood want similar pay.
"We want the $14.27 per hour with benefits," said Gueldere Guerilus, 50, a G2 employee from Miami and strike participant. "For two years we've been voicing our issues and still nothing has been done."
For Fort Lauderdale wheelchair agent Sandra Smith, 47, it's been a struggle to make ends meet on her current pay. "It's sad to see how we have to fight to get a living wage. We're doing the same [work] and we're getting way less money here."
Ronald Fulton of the Disability Caucus of Miami said he supported the workers' cause.
"The workers at [the] Fort Lauderdale airport do a community service in their handling and care" of people in wheelchairs, Fulton said in a statement. "Respect for their work directly translates to respect for the disabled, which is why I stand with them."
Nadege Cantave, a mother of four who works for G2 as a wheelchair attendant, said her electricity has been shut off twice because she can't afford to pay her bills.
"We are on strike because we can't survive on what G2 is giving us," said Cantave, whose husband works for G2 as a skycap, earning $5.03 an hour plus tips. "It's hard to feed the kids, and we don't have enough to pay for rent."
In May, Broward County Commissioners introduced a bill to extend the county's Living Wage ordinance to include more than 1,200 passenger service workers at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood who earn an average of $8.14 per hour, the union said. The commission has not acted, the SEIU said.
Two more motions are needed to advance the living wage initiative, and the G2 employees hope at least one will be put on the Broward County Commission's agenda by June 23 before it goes on summer break, a SEIU representative said.
The G2 workers also made an appeal to Broward commissioners Tuesday and marched outside the county's Government Building in downtown Fort Lauderdale to voice their issues. Additional marches were held at G2's airport office and in Terminal 1.
Can Uber-style apps make affordable private jets a reality?
(CNN)Here's the scenario:
The business meeting wraps up in Boston, now an urgent situation is developing in Los Angeles.
A quick check of flight schedules reveals there's a premium-rate business-class seat available.
However, the flight doesn't depart until first thing tomorrow.
But hang on, there's another option.
A private jet, leaving when you want it to leave.
And it's cheaper too.
Seriously.
In the wake of Uber's shake-up of the taxi market and AirBnB's impact on accommodations, that most exclusive industry of all, executive aviation, could soon be disrupted in the same way.
So does that mean that ordinary business travelers could soon be switching to low-cost private aircraft in the same way they've been switching to cheaper, convenient cabs across town?
Some aviation entrepreneurs think so.
They're creating simple, sleek mobile apps to optimize spare capacity in the private jet market and create a smooth booking experience.
Obviously private aviation isn't going to be for the masses, but what if this exclusive preserve of the super-rich is about to become accessible to the merely affluent -- those that today fill the front cabin section of commercial aircraft?
Instead of calling a broker or buying into shared exec jet ownership, these new apps allow travelers to secure a private aircraft with just a few clicks and no membership fees.
Online marketplaces like Jetsmarter, Victor or Ubair rely on complex predictive algorithms to aggregate aircraft availability data from hundreds of private jet operators and provide quotes within seconds.
Cheaper than driving?
"We are a high tech big data company at core," says Sergey Petrossov, Jetsmarter's founder, adding that most of his company's clients are newcomers to executive aviation.
Petrossov sees a future where the executive jet industry goes the way of the Uber-reshaped taxi market.
He believes apps could even become so efficient that prices drop to the point where private aircraft not only take business from traditional operators and airlines, but from road transport.
Fleets of small propeller aircraft could lure people away from cars and into the skies.
Richard Koe, managing director of aviation market intelligence consultancy WINGX, is more cautious.
Yes, some new players are streamlining the booking process, he says, but that might not be enough to bring prices down to levels that'll open up private flights to greater numbers.
Empty-leg solutions
Koe instead thinks the online players might simply end up taking business from traditional brokers rather than disrupt the industry's structure.
They could, however, offer an efficient solution to the problem of so-called empty legs.
These happen when private jets fly without passengers as operators reposition them.
According to some industry estimates, empty legs account for more than a third of all private flights.
Jetsuite, a light-jet operator based in California, pioneered discounted online sales of empty legs and others have followed suit.
Jetsmarter even offers empty legs for free to clients signing up for its optional membership plan.
There's a major drawback though.
The rigid and unpredictable nature of empty legs doesn't really suit the flexibility needs of the private jet crowd.
While heavily discounted "empty leg" flights make for excellent marketing material, only a fraction of those actually end up being sold.
With on-demand charters still the bread and butter of exec aviation marketplaces, it's in precisely this area that digitization can make a difference by adding extra layers of transparency.
Which is why Victor, a UK-based company that's just closed an $8 million funding round to expand in the United States, has decided to make of transparency its chief selling point.
Normally, passengers calling a broker would be told very little about the aircraft they're hiring -- nothing about the plane type, the operator or the commission they're being charged, says Victor's founder and CEO Clive Jackson.
By making all these details available through its website and app, Victor hopes to build long-term trust-based relationships with its clients.
All-you-can-fly
Other players are experimenting with new pricing models instead.
JetMe offers a reverse-auction feature on its website and app.
Customers enter the destination and dates of their flight on Jetme's website or app and are given a tentative quote based on an analysis of market prices.
They're then given the option to submit their own bid.
Jetme's system is smart enough to tell users what chances their bid has of being accepted by aircraft operators, allowing them to make a more informed decision on whether to submit it.
California-based Surfair and its East Coast equivalent, Beacon, are proposing an entirely different model: a flat fee all-you-can-fly membership.
Members pay a monthly fee ($1,750 for Surfair, $2,000 for Beacon) that allows them to fly as many times as possible on certain routes.
This model is more akin to that of scheduled airlines than to that of executive jet charter operators, since flights are limited to a number of trunk routes and passengers share the aircraft with other travelers.
However, this might suit the needs of ultra-frequent fliers who find themselves commuting between two given cities, let's say, New York and Boston, several times per week.
Beacon CEO Wade Eyerly claims this way of flying has helped seal many business deals, as the flights provide a perfect venue for professional networking.
Those that do not mind sharing the ride with strangers can also use BlackJet.
Launched in 2012 with the backing of some A-list celebrities, BlackJet has been recently repositioned as a marketplace for private jet seats after undergoing some financial turbulence.
Winner takes all?
Blackjet lets members book seats, at a significant discount, on private flights that've already been scheduled but are not flying at full capacity.
The limitation, as in the case of empty legs, is that passengers are dependent on aircraft being available on their route and time of choice.
Pere Suau-Sanchez, a lecturer in air transport management at the UK's Cranfield University, says this tradeoff between cost and flexibility, together with the fact that many airlines have been busy improving their first- and business-class products to keep top-tier corporate clients, could be a significant obstacle when it comes to attracting new customers.
So which one of these models will last?
Will there be a winner-takes-all scenario or a more fragmented market, with each player catering to the needs of specific market segments?
The jury is out.
If what happened to other industries after going digital is any guide, we might see a significant degree of consolidation among these marketplaces, perhaps with smaller players holding their ground by catering to niche markets and offering different business models.
The democratization of private flying has proven elusive so far and it's likely to remain a challenging proposition.
Bill Vervaeke, CDME
West Palm Beach, FL 33411
(561) 795-5912 (Office & Facsimile)
(561) 318-9089 (Cellular)
Suicide Bomber Strikes Near Ancient Temple in Luxor, Egypt
Militants tried to attack the ancient temple of Karnak in southern Egypt on Wednesday, with a suicide bomber blowing himself up and two gunmen battling police. No sightseers were hurt in the thwarted assault, but it suggested that Islamic extremists are shifting targets from security forces to the country's vital tourism industry.
The violence left the bomber and one gunman dead, the other wounded and arrested, and four other people wounded. The temple was not damaged.
The attackers carried guns in backpacks, and one wore a belt of explosives. They rode in a taxi through a police checkpoint to a parking lot and sat at a cafe and ordered lemonades, witnesses told The Associated Press. The taxi driver, suspicious after they refused his offer to help with the packs, alerted police.
When a policeman approached, the bomber tried to hug him, but the policeman wrestled away. Seconds later, he detonated the explosives, and the others pulled automatic weapons from their bags and opened fire wildly, sending a small group of European tourists running for cover, the witnesses said.
The attack followed one this month outside the famed Giza Pyramids in which gunmen killed two policemen. The violence points to a change in tactics by Islamic militants against the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. For two years, attacks have been centered in the Sinai Peninsula, mostly by a group that has sworn allegiance to the Islamic State group and largely focused on retaliation against police and soldiers.
A campaign against tourism, one of the main sources of foreign revenue, could deal a blow to el-Sissi's promises to repair Egypt's economy.
Tourism has just started to show signs of recovery after plunging in the turmoil since the 2011 uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak. The first five months of this year saw tourism revenues up 9 percent from the same period last year, Tourism Minister Khaled Ramy said.
Ramy said he expects the slow recovery to continue despite the attack, and he underscored how police had thwarted it.
"Security forces were there. It's a very important message to everyone," he told the AP on a flight from Cairo to Luxor.
Mohammed Sayed Badr, the governor of Luxor province, said the attack was "an attempt to break into the temple of Karnak."
"They didn't make it in," he said.
But witnesses noted it was civilian bystanders who alerted police to the threat.
Karnak, one of Egypt's biggest attractions, is a giant complex of temples, statues, obelisks and columns built by pharaonic dynasties alongside the Nile. The oldest sections date back nearly 4,000 years.
Access to the site is through a gate and a roadblock, leading to a parking lot and visitors' center hundreds of yards from the ancient structure, which is reachable only on foot.
The waiter who served the men said only one spoke to him and had an accent from northern Egypt, while the others stopped talking when he approached. When they paid their bill, he said he refused to take their tip.
"They looked scary. ... One of them had really bad eyes," said the waiter, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Ikrami, for fear of problems with police for talking to the media.
Another cafe employee, Abdel-Nasser Mohammed, said the taxi driver reported his suspicions about the men to police. As the three walked away, a policeman approached them, leading to the tussle between the officer and the bomber, Mohammed said.
The bomber triggered the blast near a public restroom, and the other two opened fire. One ran toward the visitors' center, and a policeman shot him in the head, Mohammed said.
Tourist shop owner Sheik Ahmed Abdel-Mawgoud said he been standing near the restroom only seconds before the blast.
"When the explosion happened, I ran for cover and told my friend, a tour guide, to run with the tourists with him. I screamed at him, 'Terrorism!'" he told the AP.
The exchange of fire with police lasted several minutes, witnesses said, and two policemen were among the wounded.
Only a handful of tourists and Egyptians were in the temple at the time, security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
AP video of the scene showed what was believed to be the remains of the bomber covered with a black sheet with pools of blood nearby.
The monument "is safe and unaffected and visitors continue to arrive," temple director Mohammed Abdel-Aziz told the AP. Four groups of foreigners visited after the attack.
There was no claim of responsibility, but the attack bore the hallmarks of Islamic militants who have operating in the Sinai Peninsula.
Last year, the main Sinai-based insurgent group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, which has destroyed archaeological landmarks in Syria and Iraq, viewing them as idolatrous.
The violence in Sinai accelerated and spread to other parts of Egypt following the 2013 military overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. The militants say the attacks are in retaliation for a massive crackdown on Islamists in Egypt.
A senior security official said investigators are looking to see whether the Luxor attackers are Egyptians and whether it marks an expansion of the violence to southern Egypt, which was a breeding ground for the militants of the 1990s and 2000.
In the 1990s, Islamic militants targeted tourism to try to undermine the economy. The deadliest attack was in Luxor in November 1997, 58 people were killed at the 3,400-year-old Hatshepsut Temple.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters, said the new breed of militants were unknown to the authorities. But he said the latest attack was a qualitative shift in the militants' target.
The attack coincided with a major regional economic summit, hosted by el-Sissi at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Luxor is home to some of Egypt's most famous ancient temples and pharaonic tombs, including that of King Tutankhamun. The city has been one the sites hit hardest by the sharp downturn in foreign visitors since the 2011 uprising.
Before the turmoil, tourism accounted for as much as 20 percent of Egypt's foreign currency revenues, with as a high of 14.7 million visitors in 2010.
After the uprising, those numbers plunged to 9.6 million, and then fell lower in 2013 after Morsi's ouster. Tourists have been coming back slowly, with revenues jumping to $4 billion so far this year, compared with $1.9 billion in the same period in 2014.
Beach resorts in southern Sinai and along the Red Sea coast have drawn most of the visitors, with cultural sites like Luxor seeing only a trickle. Most tourists in the searing heat of the summer months come to Luxor only for a one-day trip from the Red Sea resort of Hurghada.
Wednesday's attack is likely to result in cancellations in bookings for Luxor, although the blow is cushioned by the fact that it is low season and most tourists stay away until October.
Three major German operators, TUI Deutschland, the Germany branch of Thomas Cook and L'TUR, said they are temporarily canceling excursions to Luxor, but stressed that most of their customers are at Red Sea resorts or on Nile cruises.
"We have no reason to advise against traveling to Egypt at the present time, since the German Foreign Ministry hasn't changed its security guidance," said L'TUR spokesman Thomas Pluennecke. "But, as a precaution, we have stopped all excursions to Luxor. Of course we take the situation seriously."
EPA calls for regulating emissions from US airliners
The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday called for regulating U.S. aircraft emissions, expanding the government's effort to crack down on industries officials say are contributing to global warming.
The EPA issued what's known as a preliminary finding of endangerment. The agency declared the emissions are harmful to human health and contribute to climate change -- a declaration that lays the groundwork for the government to eventually regulate the airline industry.
Critics, though, have warned that the looming rules could eventually lead to increased ticket prices -- and more crowded flights -- as airlines try to comply with new efficiency standards.
“The sky is the limit when it comes to how much of the U.S. economy the EPA wants to control,” Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said in a written statement following the EPA announcement.
Wednesday’s finding coincides with a multi-year push by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a branch of the United Nations, to develop global aircraft emissions standards. Final agreement on the ICAO standards, a U.N. agency, is expected in February 2016. The standards themselves aren’t expected to go into effect until 2020 or even as late as 2025, according to some environmentalists following the matter.
A final U.S. decision on adopting the international standards is likely to be left to the next presidential administration.
Smith, chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, said the regulations “would increase the price of airfare for Americans and harm our domestic carriers.” He added that the EPA finding is the “next leg of a nonstop journey by the EPA to control how Americans live, work and travel.”
The industry, though, praised the EPA for planning to go through the international process. Nancy Young, with Airlines for America, said it is "critical" that the emissions standards be agreed upon globally.
"U.S. airlines are green and we are getting even greener," she said in a statement.
The U.S. regulations would apply only to large planes like airliners and cargo jets and turboprop aircraft, and not to smaller jet aircraft, piston-engine planes, helicopters or military aircraft.
The ICAO standards are not expected to apply to airliners in service today or those that might be purchased before the effective date, said Vera Pardee, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. The center is one of several environmental groups that sued the EPA to force the agency to issue its finding that emissions endanger public health.
Airlines typically fly planes for 20 years or more before replacing them. That means it's likely to be decades before planes that meet the anticipated global standards are in widespread use.
Airline emissions account for about 2 percent of total annual global greenhouse gas emissions. That sounds small, but it's nearly as much as the emissions produced by Germany, the sixth-greatest greenhouse gas producing country, according to a study released last year by The International Council on Clean Transportation, an environmental group with offices in the U.S. and Germany.
Aircraft manufacturers have already made significant strides in increasing fuel efficiency. Since the early years of the jet age in the 1960s, the fuel efficiency of airliners has increased 70 percent, according to Boeing. There's plenty of incentive to be as efficient as possible: Fuel typically vies with labor as airlines' greatest expense.
The U.S. airline industry has set a target of an average annual improvement in fuel efficiency of 1.5 percent, and so far has been successful in meeting that goal, said Young.
Alaska, Frontier and Spirit airlines were tied for most fuel-efficient U.S. airlines, the study found. The least fuel efficient was American, which operates a fleet of MD-80 airliners, an older design that is being phased out.
Changes in the operating strategies of airlines in recent years have also contributed to greater efficiency. Airlines are packing more people into fewer flights.
However, global aviation emissions are rising because there is more air travel overall. U.S. airlines, which include several of the world's largest carriers, account for about 29 percent of global airline carbon emissions if both domestic and international flights are included.
The world's two largest aircraft makers have recently introduced into service more fuel-efficient planes designed for long-distance international routes — the Boeing 787 and the Airbus A350.
Airlines, aircraft makers and the Federal Aviation Administration have also been working with biofuels companies to develop alternatives to jet fuel that could potentially reduce the aviation's industry's vulnerability to the ups and downs of oil supplies and prices, as well as reduce carbon emissions.
"We're not dragging our feet," said Tim Neale, a spokesman for Boeing. "We're hard at work on lighter airplanes, and GE is hard at work on more efficient engines. And we're working a lot of these operational issues with the carriers so they operate the planes more efficiently."
Boeing and airline industry officials say they support ICAO's effort to develop a single global standard, since airlines fly globally. But Pardee said environmentalists hope that if the ICAO standard turns out to be weak, the EPA will move forward with stronger standards for U.S. airlines.
Republican-Controlled House Passes Bill To Cut $242 Million From Amtrak's Budget
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The GOP-controlled House passed legislation Tuesday to cut Amtrak's budget by $242 million, though lawmakers added new funding for video cameras inside locomotive cabs to record engineers and help investigators get to the bottom of crashes such as last month's deadly derailment in Philadelphia.
Amtrak announced last month it is going to install the cameras after years of delays. The transportation and housing measure approved by a narrow 216-210 vote contains $9 million approved last week to fund the inward-facing camera initiative in the budget year starting in October.
Amtrak is among many domestic programs whose budgets are cut or frozen by the GOP measures, as automatic spending curbs known as sequestration are again hitting federal agencies after two years of relief. Previous House GOP attempts to cut Amtrak over the years have been reversed, and Tuesday's transportation measure is but an opening move in a longer chess match with the White House over spending levels for agency operating budgets passed annually by Congress.
House Republicans also unveiled crunching cuts of $718 million to the Environmental Protection Agency even as a Senate panel gave initial approval to a huge measure awarding the Pentagon with a 7 percent increase. The 9 percent cut comes as Republicans press to rein in the EPA, which they say is too aggressive in pursuing a pro-environment agenda at the expense of business and industries such as utilities with coal-fired power plants.
The Amtrak funding measure is part of a huge, $55 billion spending measure funding transportation, housing for the poor and community development programs. It's the fifth of 12 spending measures to come to the House floor and, like its predecessors, faces a veto threat from President Barack Obama.
Obama is demanding that domestic programs get the same level of relief from sequestration that Republicans have awarded the Pentagon. Senate Democrats vowed Tuesday to block the GOP appropriations bills until Republicans come to the table and negotiate higher spending levels for domestic programs such as transportation grants, health research, rent vouchers for the poor and clean water grants.
"We're ready to start right now. Where are they?" said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., dismissed the idea of a budget summit, at least for now, and questioned whether Democrats would go ahead and filibuster the Pentagon funding measure next week as they have threatened. The confrontation appears headed for a showdown this fall.
The $576 billion Senate Pentagon funding measure generally matches Obama's request but relies on accounting gimmicks to do so. Republicans are padding war accounts to get around sequestration, which would freeze core defense spending at current levels, even as troop pay goes up and cost overruns plague new weapons systems like the next-generation F-35 fighter plane.
Amtrak currently receives $1.3 billion from the government, most of which goes toward capital improvements and debt service. The railroad has long come under attack for expensive subsidies of its money-losing long-distance routes and losses from its food and beverage services, but its operating subsidies are forecast to dip below $300 million this year.
New data provided to Congress shows that Amtrak's long-distances routes are losing more money, however, while the busy, profit-making Northeast corridor route is making growing profits. Money-losing routes such as the Sunset Limited, which runs from New Orleans to Los Angeles at a subsidy of more than $400 a ticket, account for losses of more than $600 million, while the Northeast corridor is expected to contribute a $357 million profit this year.
Amendments by Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, to eliminate the Sunset Limited and 11 routes whose operating costs amount to more than double the money from fares and dining car receipts failed as pro-Amtrak Republicans teamed with Democrats to defeat them.
The GOP-drafted measure cuts $242 million from capital accounts but fully funds the $289 million request for operating losses.
Elsewhere, the transportation and housing bill falls short of Obama's request for housing subsidies for the poor, which the administration says is lengthening waiting lists for rent vouchers. It would also cut funding to rehabilitate housing projects by almost $200 million to $1.7 billion, and would offer just $20 million to Choice Neighborhoods grants to help cities rebuild poor neighborhoods, a 75 percent cut from current spending.
While community development grants to states and local governments would be maintained at current levels of $3 billion and funding for a key program for the homeless would receive a nominal $50 million increase, money to help cities deal with poisonous lead paint in antiquated housing would absorb a $35 million cut, or almost one-third.
The measure also seeks to reverse Obama administration steps to greatly ease travel restrictions to Cuba.
Martin, Indian River lose challenge to All Aboard
Judge rules counties failed to show project hinges on bonds sale.
All Aboard Florida will be allowed to sell $1.75 billion in tax-exempt bonds to help pay for its express-passenger rail project between Miami and Orlando, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper denied requests by Martin and Indian River counties for an injunction to block the bond sale, saying, in part, that the money was not a linchpin to finishing the passenger rail line.
In a 21-page opinion, Cooper said the counties did not show that the rail project is dependent on the private activities bonds, or that their sale would influence the outcome of a federal environmental study examining the impact of the trains.
Martin and Indian River counties filed federal lawsuits this year against the U.S. Department of Transportation, challenging whether All Aboard Florida is eligible for the private activity bonds. All Aboard Florida is an intervenor in the suit.
Indian River County officials said they were “reviewing the order and analyzing our options.”
An attorney representing Martin County also said he was studying the ruling.
“We are studying the judge’s decision. The bottom line of tonight’s order is the judge never reaches the merits of our claims,” said Steve Ryan, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney hired to represent Martin County. “The decision not to grant the injunction we sought does not end this case. It resolves only the first legal skirmish.”
In a statement, the passenger rail company said, “We look forward to continuing to advance our investment into Florida’s infrastructure and expedite the delivery of an important new transportation option that will generate significant benefits for all residents and visitors to our state.”
All Aboard Florida plans to run 32 trains a day — 16 round trips — on the Florida East Coast Railway between Miami and Orlando. Service is expected to start in 2017. All Aboard Florida’s parent company, Florida East Coast Industries, owns most of the right of way and track that the trains will run on.
All Aboard Florida won preliminary approval from the Department of Transportation in December to issue the private activity bonds, which are purchased by individual investors at no risk to taxpayers. The Coral Gables-based company also faces a final approval to issue the bonds by the Florida Development Finance Corporation.
In All Aboard Florida’s case, the bonds would be issued by the Florida Development Finance Corporation and then sold to investors by the private rail company.
The corporation was set to vote on the bond sale this week but postponed the meeting because travel logistics “created uncertainty for convening a quorum,” a spokesman said.
All Aboard Florida is seeking the private activity bonds because they are cheaper for the project than if it used taxable bonds. Replacing the bonds with taxable debt would increase All Aboard Florida’s interest costs by as much as $630 million over the first 10 years of the project, court documents say.
“At the end of the day, one cannot but conclude that the additional interest costs that would result from the absence of tax-exempt (bonds) would cause AAF, as a reasonable investor, to think twice about proceeding with the project,” Cooper wrote in the order. “In the court’s view, however, the counties have not demonstrated, as they must, that these costs would significantly increase the likelihood that AAF would abandon the project after years of planning and over a billion dollars in investment.”
The company has said it would move forward with the rail project regardless of whether it receives the tax-exempt bonds. In a brief filed in the suit, All Aboard Florida said that denying the bonds will only push back its start date and increase its costs.
In their federal suits, the counties argued that the U.S. Department of Transportation’s December approval of the bonds was unlawful because it was made before the completion of an environmental review by the Federal Railroad Administration
British airline flight crews plan lawsuit over toxic air
Most people stepping on commercial airlines worry far more about the danger from the air outside the fuselage than inside. However, concerns are growing ever louder from airline employees about toxic fumes inside the cabin, which may seriously damage the health of the flight crew and even frequent fliers. In fact, at least one British Airways pilot, Richard Westgate, is believed to have died from it, according to the senior coroner for Dorset.
Aerotoxic Syndrome, as it’s now known, is believed to come from regular exposure to air compression systems in commercial planes. As some of a plane’s circulated air is drawn from the jet engines, it sometimes comes with oil and other toxic molecules, which over long periods can cause significant health damage. However, Britain’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) begs to differ, claiming “fume events” to be rare and with no evidence of long-term effect on health.
Now, 17 airline employees, both former and current, are planning to take legal action against several British airlines, charging in a civil claim that contaminated cabin air poisoned them. Unite, a union representing 20,000 flight crew is funding the case and paying close attention to the verdict, which if in the employees’ favor, could open the floodgates for dozens more cases.
An uncensored safety report submitted to the CAA, and obtained by the BBC, appears to give the plaintiffs significant ammunition. Between April 2014 and May 2015, 251 separate incidents of fumes or smoke were recorded inside a large passenger jet operated by a British airline, with illness resulting in 104 cases, and even immediate oxygen administered in 28.
Hopefully the legal battle will be short, and both awareness and changes in plane design (as with the Boeing Dreamliner, which uses a different system) resolve the problem quickly, so all sides can breathe freely.
Frontier removes departure time from boarding passes
Passengers flying Frontier Airlines will notice something familiar missing from their boarding passes: the departure time.
Instead, Frontier will now list the time that "boarding begins" and the time that the boarding "door closes," which is 10 minutes prior to a flight's scheduled departure time.
Frontier began rolling out the new boarding pass format late last week, and the move appears to be a first among big U.S. carriers. The nation's nine other large carriers – Alaska Airlines, American, Delta, JetBlue, Hawaiian, Spirit, Southwest, United and Virgin America – all confirmed to USA TODAY that they still list departure times on their boarding passes.
None indicated an imminent change to that practice.
"We have no plans to remove departure time from our boarding passes," Spirit Airlines spokesman Paul Berry says.
As for Frontier, spokesman Jim Faulkner says the goal for the change is to keep flights on schedule.
"It's part of our emphasis to ensure an on-time departure for our customers," Faulkner tells Today in the Sky. "If the door closes 10 minutes before scheduled departure, customers still have time to stow their bags, get their seatbelts fastened and get settled in so that the plane can push back from the gate on time or before."
"If we're closing the door at the same time as the scheduled departure time, we're already running behind," he adds.
One industry expert describes Frontier's boarding-pass change as a relatively minor one. But he says it could be helpful to passengers nonetheless.
"I like the idea," says Brett Snyder, author of The Cranky Flier blog and operator of the Cranky Concierge travel service.
He notes most airlines already close their boarding doors before a flight's scheduled departure time. So Frontier's decision to list that time on its boarding passes instead "just makes it more clear to customers" about when they should be at the gate.
"They're going to close the door anyway, but hopefully this means there are less people still on the other side of it," Snyder says. "I don't see a downside."
No failsafe way to stop cockpit sabotage
The US Federal Aviation Authority says there is no effective failsafe way to prevent pilot sabotage.
In a response to a question from the National Transportation Safety Board following the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, the agency said there was no legal or technologically feasible solution to ensure electronics in the cockpit are completely tamper-proof.
The NTSB had asked that black box recorders and other mission critical electronics be designed to prevent them being switched off.
Pilots needed the option to cut the power in the event of overheating or fire, the FAA said.
"There appears to be no safe way to ensure recorders cannot be intentionally disabled while keeping the airplane safe from electrical failure that could become hazardous," FAA Administrator Michael Huerta wrote in a letter to NTSB officials, according to a Bloomberg News report.
The FAA also rejected a call to install video cameras in cockpits, saying there is 'no compelling evidence' it would assist any investigation.
The final position of flight MH370 carrying 239 people still remains a mystery, while evidence points to the theory that the plane was deliberately flown off course and its radios and tracking equipment were manually switched off.
The issue of cockpit safety has intensified following the Germanwings crash in the French Alps earlier this year.
Casino ship nearly ready to sail from Port of Palm Beach
The failed Island Breeze day-casino cruise boat is getting closer to re-launching under a new name and operator.
By early July, the 600-passenger casino boat could be sailing again from the Port of Palm Beach as the Blue Horizon, said Robert Weisberg, managing partner of its new operator, PB Gaming Inc.
The 160-foot casino boat — initially expected to be renamed Princess Royale —- has undergone millions of dollars in upgrades including new slot machines, Weisberg said in a phone interview.
It's now in the final stages of reconnecting operational and gaming systems onboard to be ready for its soft launch, he said.
Blue Horizon is expected to sail twice daily, but more details on its schedule, pricing and onboard offerings are expected to be announced in coming weeks, Weisberg said.
"We're proud of this boat," he said. "We're delighted by what we'll have onboard."
Electronic bingo, slot and blackjack tournaments are expected to be among its entertainment options, he said.
PB Gaming — a subsidiary of SourcePoint LLC of Puerto Rico — took possession of the casino boat and its charter agreement earlier this year after the assets of its former operator Island Breeze International Palm Beach were liquidated in bankruptcy.
SourcePoint had been the major creditor when IBI Palm Beach filed for bankruptcy last November.
Counting the brief four months the same casino ship ran trips between November 2012 and February 2013 as the Black Diamond, this will be the third latest attempt to resurrect day-casino trips from the Riviera Beach seaport.
The Palm Beach Princess day-casino cruise vessel, which stopped operating in 2010, was the last to run casino trips long term from the port. It operated there for more than 10 years before going out of business.
For PB Gaming, the third time could be the charm, but it's not just betting on luck.
Weisberg, a former SunCruz Casino executive, said the two previous operators of the ship weren't properly equipped to run day-casino cruises.
He cited a lack of marine experience in running these kinds of vessels, limited-to-no casino experience and insufficient funding among reasons for their failure.
That's not the case with PB Gaming, Weisberg said, noting it has vast experience in these areas and financing to make it work.
Port commissioners recently approved a five-year agreement with Weisberg's outfit.
The Riviera seaport is projecting to receive on average $730,000 in passenger fees, an estimated $80,000 in parking revenue and $36,000 in office rent annually from PB Gaming, said Jarra Kazcwara, senior director of business development.
For cheap fares, consider Tuesday, Saturday flights
Flying midweek and on Saturday should net you the cheapest fares this summer, according to an online booking service.
CheapAir.com, which tracks airline fares, also recommends waiting a bit to head out during the summer-vacation season. September and late August offer the best fares, CheapAir contends.
Tuesday is the cheapest day to fly, but Wednesday, during July at least, is only an average of $5 more expensive.
And Sept. 2 is the cheapest day to depart for Labor Day weekend, CheapAir said.
Orlando's first flight to Cuba departed today
Orlando International Airport's first flight to Cuba has finally left the airport.
A charter flight, operated by Miami-based World Atlantic Airlines, was scheduled to depart from the airport at 1 p.m. on a nonstop route to Havana.
Carolyn Fennell, an airport spokeswoman, said the charter flight is one of three scheduled by Gulfstream Air Charters, a tour operating group based in Miami.
The flight, however, was delayed because of bad weather and other issues, said Fennell. The flight finally left at 3:31 p.m., she said.
Today's charter flight is one of three by Gulfstream that have been approved at Orlando International, said Fennell. The other flights will leave June 17 and 24, she said.
Gulfstream Air Charters offers nonstop flights between Florida and Cuba, according to the company's website. A service schedule posted on Gulfstream's site only lists flights departing in September from Miami; ticket prices, according to the site, range from $309 to $349 per person.
Flights from Miami to Cuba are listed as operated by Envoy Air and Falcon Air Express. However, Falcon Air relinquished its FAA air carrier certificate June 5.
Fennell said there have not been discussions to extend Gulfstream's charter service beyond the three June flights.
Twice-weekly flights to the island nation were originally scheduled to depart Orlando starting July 8, via Island Travel & Tours.
Those flights will take place Wednesday and Sundays, said Island Travel & Tours officials when they announced their flights in April
British tourists may face imprisonment for stripping on Malaysian mountain
A British tourist, Eleanor Hawkins, was arrested for posing naked on top of a sacred mountain in Malaysia. The 24-year-old Southampton University graduate from Derby was detained at Tawau airport today, as she was flying out from the island of Borneo to Kuala Lumpur. She is one of five tourists arrested for the same stunt.
Three of the tourists turned themselves in to the Malaysia authorities: 23-year-old Canadian Lindsey Peterson, his 22-year-old sister Danielle Peterson, and 23-year-old Dutchman Dylan Snel. 33-year-old Canadian Emil Kaminski was arrested on Wednesday, and the Malaysia police are still looking for five other individuals involved in the incident.
On May 30, she set out to climb Mount Kinabalu as part of a tour that was organized by Jungle Jack Backpackers Lodge, a popular budget hostel less than a mile from the entrance to Kinabalu national park. On the way back, members of the tour group began to strip off their clothes, despite their tour guide warning them not to do so. Their response to the guide was, “Stupid man, go to hell.”
The group took a nude selfie and dressed so they could return to their lodge. A park ranger filed a complaint and Eleanor was the first to be arrested.
The deputy first minister of the state of Sarawak, Tan Sri Alfred Jabu, explained to the media that tourists need to understand and respect the culture and traditions of the places they visit. For Malaysians, this mountain is sacred.
Tribal elders have called for the case to also go before a native court.
These tourists could be imprisoned for up to three months.
The five are expected to appear before the court again on Monday, where they will find out if they are to face charges.
One of the five arrested, Emil Kaminski, is a blogger and adventure tourism organizer from Winnipeg, and appears to have no remorse for the incident. In addition to possible charges for indecent exposure, he may be also charged for insulting the culture via his posts on social media.
Kaminiski called the minister "a deranged prick, and a regressive" and was quoted as having said, “it's just a f------ mountain."
Delta to acquire 60 new aircraft upon pilot ratification of tentative agreement
ATLANTA, GA - Delta Air Lines will enter into an aircraft acquisition deal with The Boeing Co. for 20 Embraer E190 aircraft and 40 additional new 737-900ERs upon ratification of a tentative agreement covering more than 12,000 Delta pilots. The tentative agreement was approved for membership ratification today by the Delta Master Executive Council (MEC) of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA).
The tentative agreement provides enhancements to overall pilot compensation—including base pay increases—along with a revision of the airline's profit sharing formula beginning in 2016. Additionally, this accord would secure additional career advancement opportunities for Delta pilots while providing the airline with productivity enhancements and further fleet flexibility across the airline's U.S. domestic system.
"Our airline's culture of working and winning together has long set Delta apart from others in our industry," said Richard Anderson, Delta's Chief Executive Officer. "This tentative agreement with ALPA reflects the key role and contributions of our pilots in our excellent financial and operational performance."
The MEC will put the tentative agreement out to pilots for a ratification vote. If approved, the agreement would have an amendable date of Dec. 31, 2018.
"We fully support the Delta MEC's endorsement of this agreement and are optimistic of its approval by our pilots," Anderson said. "This continues the investments we've made in our people and in our products and services for our customers. These moves will continue to drive the industry-leading performance that has allowed us to return more than $3 billion to shareholders and still reward our employees with industry-leading profit sharing."
Upon ratification of the agreement, Delta will acquire 20 Boeing-held Embraer E190 aircraft previously operated by another carrier. The E190s will enter mainline Delta service in the fourth quarter of 2016.
"These 98-seat mainline aircraft will be flown by Delta pilots," Anderson said. "The capability and aptitude of all Delta people has already shown that they are the best in the business at managing a diverse fleet while keeping costs in check and never compromising safety. These cost-efficient aircraft will play a key role as we strive to achieve higher returns for our shareholders, and we thank Boeing for their important partnership."
The E190 will be deployed on U.S. domestic routes to improve the flying experience for Delta customers and continue the shift of flying away from inefficient 50-seat regional jets as part of the company's successful upgauging strategy.
Delta will also order an additional 40 new Boeing 737-900ERs, augmenting an existing order of the efficient and reliable aircraft to 140 in total. Delta plans to deploy these aircraft as replacements for other narrowbody aircraft scheduled to retire through 2019.
Bill Vervaeke, CDME
West Palm Beach, FL 33411
(561) 795-5912 (Office & Facsimile)
(561) 318-9089 (Cellular)
Big questions over Carnival's venture into voluntourism
Should we applaud or be appalled by Carnival's entry into the voluntourism sector? Responsible Travel MD Justin Francis shares his views...
"Carnival Corporation is the world's largest cruise ship operator with revenues of over $15 billion. Last week Carnival Corporation boss announced a new 'social impact' brand, Fathom.
Passengers on seven-day journeys from Port Miami to the Dominican Republic, starting in April of 2016, will also be able to help cultivate cacao plants; make chocolate with a women's cooperative; work with educators to teach English skills and help build water filters, all while using the docked ship as their home away from home.
In an interview with the Miami Herald, Arnold Donald, CEO of Carnival Corp., said the main goal of Fathom is to do good by 'driving, over time, real meaningful change for the better in a community'. In a statement, Carnival added: "What sets fathom apart is the long-term, systematic partnership approach with its partner countries paired with the unique business model that allows for sustained impact and lasting development. Fathom's scale and global vision reach beyond what the world has ever seen."
At first glance Fathom might appear a wonderful initiative. Many have argued that the mainstream travel sector must adopt responsible tourism practices and they don't come much bigger than Carnival.
However, some difficult questions are already being asked by those skeptical of Carnival's motivations and ability to deliver responsible volunteering.
Corporate social responsibility is a holistic approach to doing business in a responsible way, rather than cherry picking a few high profile initiatives. Last year Carnival was reported by GlobalExchange.org as the world's 3rd 'most criminal company' for 'dumping sewage pollution into oceans; use of cheap air-polluting fuels; tax evasion; and unfair labor wages'.
The organization goes on to claim: "Over the past five years, the corporation has only paid corporate taxes for a total of 1.1% of their $11.3 billion in profits, according to the New York Times. Additionally, Carnival's workers are paid substandard wages; staff members on United Kingdom-based ships are paid $1.20 per hour, or $400 per month in basic wages, and claim to be denied their tips. Their pay is below international standards. Workers are also allegedly given minimal accommodations and often insufficient food. The cruise system makes it very easy for labor to be abused, and Carnival Cruises has been called a 'sweatshop at sea'."
In my opinion, one thing that would be guaranteed to hole the Fathom concept below the water line would be any sense among well meaning volunteers that the staff cleaning their rooms or serving their food on board were, as global exchange claim, working in a 'sweatshop at sea'
Carnival does have a Code of Business Conduct and ethics. I would expect a public company of the size of Carnival to publish an externally verified social and environmental audit, but I cannot find this and so cannot examine any of its claims in regard to ethics.
The concept of 700 volunteers with minimal training descending to 'do good' has also been questioned in this post on the Better Volunteering facebook page.
The reputation of the voluntourism sector has suffered greatly in recent years, with acres of bad press having been generated. One of the principle criticisms has been that volunteering opportunities have been created as a business opportunity rather than based on a real local need; that volunteers arrive to find there is little worthwhile work to do and they lack the relevant skills to make a difference; or worse still skilled local staff are fired so short term volunteers can take their place.
In the Better Volunteering post questions are asked (and not answered) about whether volunteers with be checked for criminal records; how skills will be assessed and matched against needs, and whether volunteers will be thinly spread through communities to avoid too much disruption.
Carnival is working with local partners (including an NGO with somewhat confusingly the same name as the new cruise brand Fathom.org) and they have acknowledged but not yet answered these questions.
For me there is a sense that this could be a pivotal moment in the development of the voluntourism sector. Done right it could help bring it into the mainstream, but if not it could be a death knell to a sector already reeling from bad PR. At the very least Carnival needs to get its messaging straight. In one breath it talks of 'a unique business model that allows for sustained impact and lasting development' and in another the CEO says 'this is a market-driven solution and in the highly unlikely event that we don't get bookings, we will kill it'.
Wet 'n Wild Orlando Waterpark to Close Permanently in 2016
After nearly four decades in operation, Universal Orlando announced on Wednesday that Wet 'n Wild Orlando waterpark will close at the conclusion of 2016.
In a statement on its official blog, the resort said the park will officially close on Dec. 31, 2016.
But given the timing of the announcement, the disappointment over the end of Wet 'n Wild Orlando is arguably equal to the excitement surrounding the 2017 arrival of Universal's next-generation waterpark Volcano Bay, which Universal unveiled plans for last month.
"...the groundbreaking spirit that has defined Wet 'n Wild will continue in the development of Universal's Volcano Bay, a next-generation water theme park that reimagines what it means to be a water park," said Universal Orlando spokesman Tom Schroder in a statement. "We’re grateful to our countless fans and team members for making Wet 'n Wild such a special place for so very long."
Opened in March 1977, the 30-acre Wet 'n Wild Orlando is open year-round, boasting more than a dozen different attractions.
Universal Parks & Resorts purchased the waterpark back in 1998 and just recently purchased 50 acres of land under and around the park for $30.9 million. "We are pleased with Wet 'n Wild as a component of our business, and this purchase was a natural step for us," said Schroder following the purchase in June 2013 via the Orlando Sentinel. "Beyond that, we don't discuss our business transactions."
Prior to the emergence of nearby Walt Disney World's Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach, Wet 'n Wild was the U.S.'s premier waterpark, posting the nation's highest attendance figures for a majority of the 1990s.
But Wet 'n Wild drew just over 1.2 million visitors in 2012, putting it behind it well behind Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach, which combined to host four million visitors that year, according to consulting firm AECOM via the Sentinel.
TA rethinks proposed change to size of carry-ons
In the face of criticism, IATA said that it has put on hold its recently announced international guidelines for carry-on luggage that would have slightly reduced recommended dimensions.
IATA had recommended dimensions that were slightly smaller than those allowed by most U.S. airlines. The proposal was rejected by U.S. carriers and panned by politicians.
Nicholas Calio, CEO of U.S. airline trade group Airlines for America, said that its members “reject the recent carry-on size initiative put forth by IATA because it is unnecessary and flies in the face of the actions the U.S. carriers are taking to invest in the customer experience — roughly $1.2 billion a month — including larger overhead bins.
“Our members already have guidelines in place on what size bags they can accommodate, making this action unnecessary. We agree with IATA’s action to reassess this initiative and take into account stakeholders’ views and recognize work already underway to improve baggage facilitation.”
Tom Windmuller, IATA’s senior vice president, airport, passenger, cargo and security, said, “While many welcomed the Cabin OK initiative, significant concerns were expressed in North America. We need to get it right. Today we are pausing the rollout and launching a comprehensive reassessment of the Cabin OK program with plans to further engage program participants, the rest of our members, and other key stakeholders.”
Two U.S. senators who spoke out against IATA’s plan were Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.).
The Global Business Travel Association said IATA was wise to “hit the pause button.”
“This proposal, if adopted by air carriers, would increase costs and pose headaches for business travelers who want to avoid the delays and time lost associated with checking baggage,” said Michael McCormick, GBTA's executive director.
U.S. Travel Association CEO Roger Dow said that cracking down on the size of carry-on bags “would have been unnecessary and yet another slap in the face to travelers.”
JetBlue rolls out corporate booking tool
JetBlue Airways has launched Blue Inc. a free booking tool for small to midsized companies.
In addition to the booking capabilities found on its consumer website, Blue Inc. allows companies to earn TrueBlue points. Companies will earn three loyalty points per dollar spent on JetBlue flights for employee travel booked through the portal. Businesses can then grant access to registered travelers within the company to redeem points.
Travelers earn six TrueBlue points per dollar spent for their individual TrueBlue accounts.
Blue Inc. has travel management capabilities. Travel managers can set travel budgets, track spending and manage bookings. Companies can book multiple travelers for group travel, while still offering personal payment options for each traveler if necessary.
Users can also book hotels and rental cars on Blue Inc.
“JetBlue is becoming increasingly serious about courting the business travel market, not just corporate accounts but the small to mid-sized businesses that the airline has long served,” said industry analyst Henry Harteveldt.
Airbus edges Boeing in orders race at Paris air show
Airbus collects orders worth $57 billion at Paris air show, edging out Boeing's $50 billion
LE BOURGET, France (AP) -- Airbus glided past U.S. rival Boeing to take top honors in their annual competition to sell commercial jets at the Paris Air Show, according to final tallies that together amounted to over $107 billion in business.
The announcements Thursday capped four days of deal-making at the biennial air show, when top executives from the world's largest airlines clink champagne glasses and write whopping checks as test pilots fly demonstrations of high-tech aircraft at Paris' normally sleepy Le Bourget airfield.
Airbus racked up $57 billion worth of business for 421 aircraft. The announcement of a provisional deal by European low-cost carrier Wizz Air for 110 A321neos — worth more than $12.5 billion at list prices — put the Toulouse, France-based plane maker over the top Thursday against Boeing in financial terms. It was the show's single biggest order.
Chicago-based Boeing tallied orders and commitments for 331 planes worth $50.2 billion. Its biggest deal was with Dutch leasing company AerCap for 100 737MAX-8 planes, worth up to $10.7 billion at list prices. Customers routinely negotiate discounts off those list prices.
Overall, business was not as good as in previous years. Last year, at Britain's Farnborough Air Show, which trades the spotlight with Paris from year to year as the site of Europe's premier aviation event, Airbus clinched orders and commitments for 486 aircraft valued at $75 billion. But Boeing won more this year than last, when it landed business worth $40.2 billion for 201 planes.
Industry watchers had been expecting a modest haul of orders as airlines pull back from a record-breaking spate of plane buying in recent years.
High fuel prices up until a year ago had prompted airlines to invest massively in a new generation of more fuel-economical aircraft like the Airbus A320neo and the Boeing 737MAX.
Thursday's announcements wrapped up the press-and-industry-only part of the air show, which now opens to the public from Friday to Sunday.
Airbus' orders count appeared to surpass its own expectations. On Tuesday, Airbus CEO Fabrice Bregier had told The Associated Press that he predicted about 200 orders or commitments by the end of the show.
While Airbus executives have forecast high demand for the company's A380 superjumbo to serve growing megacities, the company booked no new orders for the massive 500-seater. The last order for the jet dates back to last year.
Boeing forecasts demand for 38,050 airplanes over the next 20 years, and says 26,730 of those will be single-aisle jets. Airbus projects that 32,600 new planes worth a total of $4.9 trillion will be needed by 2034.
Indonesian flag-carrier Garuda was one of the show's most active buyers, signing a letter of intent for up to 60 Boeing jets — 30 of the popular single-aisle 737MAX and 30 787-9 planes.
Garuda also put in a provisional order for 30 wide-body Airbus A350 planes, worth about $9 billion, which could serve routes from Jakarta or Bali to Europe.
Passenger busted in Miami trying to smuggle cocaine in fried fish bellies
Saturday morning, as you were either waking up, still sleeping, or just generally not being involved in drug smuggling of any kind, the defenses of Miami International Airport were being put to the test – the lightly fried test.
Over two pounds of cocaine – 2.3 pounds, at official count – arrived at the airport inside the bellies of fried fish, further inside the checked luggage of a passenger disembarking a flight from Jamaica. Aware that the drug in any quantity is neither cool nor legal, the passenger apparently decided that prepared local catch from the country of origin was the perfect vessel for evading trouble. Well, it was not.
After a standard X-ray examination, the jig was up, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Field Operations had another arrest – and more drugs to throw on the million-pound pile it seizes from troublemakers annually (3.8 million last year).
As lightly detailed in the report, inconsistencies in the shape and size of the fish drew the attention of the Customs agents, who proceeded to strike white gold upon tearing into the fish’s sewn bellies. The plan, it seems, was not to be – but then again, it is not the first fish-related drug smuggling plot to fail. In 2013, two Polish men were foiled attempting to smuggle millions worth of liquid cocaine concealed inside the bodies of four giant South American fish (the fish lived and had a happy ending waiting). Last year, a shipment of frozen fish fillets packed with $68 million in heroin and methamphetamine was thwarted in Sydney.
Holland America Ship Scores Third Straight 100 on Health Inspection
Holland America Line’s Statendam scored a 100 on its most recent U.S. Public Health inspection, making it the third consecutive perfect score for the ship.
The Statendam’s surprise inspection was conducted June 5 while the ship was at Juneau, Alaska, during a 14-day round-trip from Seattle. Before that, Statendam received a 100 in February 2015 during a call at Hilo, Hawaii, and in June 2014 in Ketchikan, Alaska.
So far this year, there have been 18 perfect scores.
Others doing so in recent weeks are Royal Caribbean International’s Radiance of the Seas on June 7, Regent Seven Seas Cruises’ Seven Seas Navigator on May 7, Celebrity Cruises’ Celebrity Equinox on April 27 and Celebrity Infinity on March 29, and Carnival Cruise Lines’ Carnival Sunshine on April 18 and Carnival Ecstasy on April 13.
“Achieving a perfect score on a USPH inspection is not easy, and we congratulate everyone on the team who worked diligently toward this success,” Holland America President Orlando Ashford said. “We always aim for a score of 100, and for Statendam to continue its perfect streak for the third consecutive time is something we celebrate with great pride.”
Holland America is on a roll. One of its other ships, Eurodam, earned a 100 for the eighth consecutive time in February, and in the past year Nieuw Amsterdam, Noordam, Ryndam, Zuiderdam and Westerdam also achieved perfect scores.
The VSP inspections were introduced in the early 1970s and are required for all passenger ships that call at a U.S. port. The unannounced inspections are carried out by U.S. Public Health officials twice a year for every cruise ship.
The score, on a scale from one to 100, is assigned on the basis of a checklist involving dozens of areas of assessment, encompassing hygiene and sanitation of food (from storage to preparation), overall galley cleanliness, water, shipboard personnel and the ship as a whole.
British Line Cancels Cruise Due to Norovirus Outbreak
Fred Olsen Cruise Lines has cancelled the Balmoral’s June 20 cruise from Southampton, England, so it can clean and sanitize the ship after a norovirus outbreak.
Olsen said canceling the three-night “Belgium & France Mini-Cruise” will “give the ship a clear ‘fire break,’ when the virus cannot pass from human-to-human contact, thereby providing the greatest opportunity for the virus to be removed from any surfaces.”
Guests booked on the canceled cruise can get a full refund or transfer to a selection of alternative sailings this year, which a number of guests have done.
In a statement, Olsen noted the “high incidence” of the gastrointestinal illness, norovirus, in the U.K. over the past few weeks. “Sadly this has meant some guests have brought this virus onto the ship,” the company said. “Norovirus is a very common virus, second only to the common cold, and affects over 265 million people annually, as well as many hospitals. The virus has been very prevalent in the U.K. this year, and is spread very easily by contact with surfaces and from person-to-person, especially within ‘closed’ communities. According to Public Health England, a total of 69 wards/bays were closed in English hospitals due to norovirus from April 27 to 31st May 31.”
Fred Olsen operates four ships and primarily markets to British travelers.
European Commercial Jets Urged to Carry Defibrillators, Life-Saving Equipment
In the wake of 47-year-old Davina Tavener's tragic death aboard a Ryanair flight late last year, coroner Alan Walsh is urging airlines to carry defibrillators and other emergency equipment on short- and long-haul flights, according to The Guardian.
Tavener was traveling to Spain with her husband for vacation when she became ill several hours into the flight, collapsed, and ultimately died of an undiagnosed heart condition.
Consultant surgeon Clare Garnsey, who was on the flight and tried to help revive Tavener, indicated that she was surprised a defibrillator wasn't available. "I did ask for a defibrillator, because if it’s a cardiac issue that’s the best chance of survival, and it was quite a surprise this wasn’t there," said Garnsey via The Guardian.
Currently, airlines aren't required to possess a defibrillator onboard.
While Walsh acknowledged that there's no way to know for certain that a defibrillator would have been enough to keep Tavener alive, he plans to reach out to multiple agencies in an effort to make the device accessible on commercial aircraft.
In addition to defibrillators, Walsh wants airlines to consider adding devices like bag valve masks, airway adjuncts and suction equipment to improve the chances of resuscitation in future medical emergencies.
Walsh said he plans to write letters to the European Aviation Safety Agency, the Civil Aviation Authority, and the Irish Aviation Authority.
The push is for the devices to be made available on every flight as Walsh believes the risk of another tragedy is uniform.
"I don’t believe there is any difference between short-haul flights and long-haul flights, said Walsh via The Guardian. "It takes a second to have a cardiac event and sadly cardiac events don’t choose whether they are 10 minutes into a flight or 10 hours into a flight. If you are, by the nature of air travel, trapped in aircraft without access to any other facility, the authorities need to consider the equipment to be carried on those airlines, whether it’s short haul or long haul."
European Airlines Lobbying for US-Style Aviation Rules
With recent strikes stranding passengers and hurting business, Europe's leading airlines are eyeing new rules and regulations designed to reduce the impact of future strikes as well as cut down on taxes.
According to the Associated Press, CEOs of Air France, KLM, Lufthansa, Easyjet, Ryanair and the International Airlines Group (British Airways parent) met with European regulators in Brussels on Wednesday to express their concerns over the region's lack of progress in simplifying its air traffic control system.
The airlines are hoping to establish aviation rules comparable to those in the U.S.
Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary expressed support for early measures designed to reduce the likelihood of a strike by allowing workers to air their grievances prior to striking. O'Leary also recommended technology that could effectively replace air traffic control workers by allowing air space to remain open even if those workers are on strike.
Air traffic controllers argue the proposed rules would have a negative impact on passenger safety as well as their job security, according to the AP.
With strikes occurring much more frequently in Europe compared to the U.S., it's understandable as to why the continent's top carriers would push for rules similar to those overseas. However it's uncertain whether European regulators will implement the proposed changes.
Noordam Comes to Aid of Sightseeing Vessel
Taking a cruise can be the vacation of a lifetime for many travelers, but one ship traveling around Alaska came to the aid of a disabled boat last week, helping its passengers and crew on board.
According to Holland America, the company’s ms Noordam was in the middle of a seven-day Alaska cruise when it came to the aid of a disabled sightseeing boat on Wednesday, June 10, near Jaw Point at Glacier Bay, Alaska.
The Noordam received a call for help at 12:35 p.m. local time and arrived on the scene to find the 79-foot sightseeing vessel Baranof Wind having mechanical issues. The Holland America Line ship lowered a tender into the water and brought Baranof Wind’s 40 passengers and one park ranger on board.
Holland America Line president Orlando Ashford released a statement about the incident:
“We are proud of the proficient response Captain van Donselaar and his team executed in assisting the passengers of Baranof Wind. Our crewmembers are highly trained to respond when needed and we were fortunate to have been nearby to provide support.”
The passengers from the sightseeing vessel were brought onboard the ms Noordam where they were served lunch. The ship made a detour to Bartlett Cove at around 5:30 p.m. local time to drop off the passengers and the park ranger before sailing to its next port of call, Ketchikan, Alaska.
While this was a great gesture by the crew and a testament to the dedication of Holland America, this is not the first time something like this has happened. As Travel Pulse’s Theresa Norton Masek reported earlier this year when two of the company’s other ships helped assist vessels in distress, the Holland America’s fleet has the ability and the compassion to help those in need.
Surf's Up Once Again at Marvelous Munich Airport
Munich Airport remains a bodacious oasis for surfing.
I know, it’s odd to hear but wonderful to enjoy, and it’s back again to quell that need to carve some serious waves on your next layover.
Via a press release, the doldrums of airport spelunking are about to come to an end: “For the fifth anniversary edition of ‘Surf & Style,’ surfing enthusiasts will try out their best moves in the Forum of the Munich Airport Center starting July 31. Surfers of all skill levels are welcome to ride the world's largest standing wave through August 23.”
We previously reported on the airport’s predilection to hanging 10 and generally welcoming your own gnarly peculiarities, so we are tickled at the reminder that the surf is most definitely up in Germany once again.
While about a month long, the event garners myriad smiles from kids of all ages as evidenced by the following videos:
In a rare twist, we are actually geeked to visit and stay for a longer duration than normal at a city’s airport.
For those interested, the waves at the MAC Forum will treat visitors from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. local time.
Or, if you are more into people watching and lack water-riding coordination, the release informs that there is the European Stationary Wave Riding Championship to look forward to, which takes place Aug. 14-16.
And you can always head to the airport’s website, which features all the details you need to enjoy a day at the airport.
For a few short weeks this summer all other airports will again be rendered extremely boring by comparison.
Three tourists killed in Algarve coach crash
Tourist officials in the Algarve have reassured holidaymakers following a fatal coach crash on Wednesday night.
Three Dutch tourists were killed in the crash and 31 other tourists injured when a bus veered off the A22 motorway and into a ravine close to the Albufeira exit.
Latest report say three of the injured tourists are in a serious condition.
The Algarve Tourism Bureau issued a statement today, which said: "Following the terrible news of last night's coach crash in Portugal, we would like to extend our condolences to the friends and families of those killed or injured in the incident.
"The Algarve takes its commitment to tourist safety and security very seriously and this incident will be fully investigated, with regulations being altered if and where necessary.
The bus was heading from Faro to the Western Algarve.
UK Tour Operator Thomas Cook moves customers after child-snatching scare at Cyprus hotel
Thomas Cook has moved around 60 British and Irish holidaymakers from a Cyprus hotel over fears for the safety of children.
The clients were moved from the Anastasia Beach Hotel in Protaras after an incident on Tuesday night in which a gang allegedly tried to snatch children from the hotel.
According to a report in the Daily Record, a couple were trying to lure three children under the age of 10 into a waiting car but were stopped when a suspicious holidaymaker intervened.
The alleged abductors were grabbed and taken to the hotel office where they were handed over to local police.
Concerned holidaymakers mounted safety patrols of the hotel grounds to protect their children.
Some guests claimed they had seen members of the gang hanging around the hotel on previous occasions during their holidays.
Holidaymakers praised Thomas Cook reps for the speedy and professional way they handled the situation and tried to calm fears.
The operator arranged for the families directly affected by the incident to fly back to the UK and agreed to move others who didn't feel safe.
A Thomas Cook spokesperson said the company was taking the incident extremely seriously and had requested an increased and immediate security presence at the hotel.
"The safety and welfare of our customers is always our first priority and upon hearing about the incident, we immediately deployed our experienced resort team to the property to provide those customers in residence with individual support.
"Customers who did not wish to stay at the property were immediately moved to alternative hotels of a similar or higher standard.
"While incidents of this nature are extremely rare, we would like to reassure all customers that this is being taken incredibly seriously and we are continuing to work closely with the local authorities and the hotel as the investigation continues.
"Any customers with concerns about future holidays at this hotel are asked to contact us directly so that we can deal with them personally and directly."
The incident was played down by the local police and in the local press.
According to the Cyprus Mail, police said they arrested a 19-year-old man from Bulgaria who holidaymakers claim had been filming their children and was trying to abduct them.
But they said after going through his phone and searching his home, nothing suggested he was part of a child-abducting gang or that he was stalking children.
English tourist speared through eye by hotel parasol to win millions in compensation
A holidaymaker speared through the eye by a flying parasol at a Tenerife hotel is set to receive millions of pounds in compensation.
Godfrey Keefe, 52, from Gateshead, was staying at the Bahia Principe Costa Hotel with his family in October 2006.
He was sitting beside the hotel pool when a gust of wind blew an unsecured parasol into his face, spearing his right eye socket and penetrating into his brain, causing him very serious injuries.
According to a report in the Telegraph, a judge in the case has valued his damages claim at more than £5 million, although the amount has yet to be assessed.
The case has dragged on for eight years because Hoteles Pinero Canarias SL, the owners of the resort, argued that Keefe was not entitled to sue them in England.
Instead the Spanish firm said he would have to take legal action in Spain, where damages awarded would have been below £600,000.
But at an Appeal Court this week, judges ruled that under European law he is entitled to sue both the hotel owners and their Spanish insurers in an English court.
Keefe, a keen sportsman, underwent emergency surgery to remove the parasol spike and has had more operations since.
According to his lawyers, he is now unfit to work and has to undergo an intensive care regime.
He was a director of a civil engineering firm at the time of the incident.
Marriott joins TripAdvisor's Instant Booking platform
Travel planning site TripAdvisor has announced a partnership with Marriott International Inc. enabling its users to search and book rooms at Marriott's 4,000-plus hotels in 80 countries.
Marriott inventory is being added to TripAdvisor's Instant Booking platform, a tool it launched last year for US customers which displays a 'Book on TripAdvisor' button for direct reservations without leaving the TripAdvisor site.
All Marriott's 19 brands can be accessed through Instant Booking.
Shafiq Khan, senior vice president for channel strategy and distribution at Marriott, said: "It maintains our ability to control where the rates and inventory for Marriott's hotels are displayed. The result is mutually beneficial to both partners from a strategic and economic standpoint."
"TripAdvisor is a perfect partner for Marriott, both strategically and culturally," added Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson.
"Our new agreement demonstrates how the growth strategies for our two companies are aligned in the travel space."
Initially, hotel chains were slow to partner with TripAdvisor for the Instant Booking service, but it has signed up some major hotel groups including Best Western, Accor and Choice Hotels.
American Airlines seeking approval for Ecuador flights
American Airlines plans to launch flights to Quito, Ecuador from its Dallas/Fort Worth hub this winter.
American filed an application to the US Department of Transportation for five weekly flights beginning December 18 and plans to deploy 128-seat Airbus A319s on the route.
"We're the largest carrier to Central and South America, and this demonstrates our commitment to that region," American spokesman Casey Norton said.
"It provides yet another destination out of our largest hub at Dallas/Fort Worth."
American also serves Lima, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Santiago, Chile from DFW and also flies to Quito from its Miami hub.
Meanwhile the Ecuador Ministry of Tourism is continuing its 'All You Need is Ecuador' campaign targeting the US and other key markets including Canada, UK, Germany, Brazil, Japan and Australia.
It will roll out a new series of press, TV and digital ads.
Ecuador welcomed a record 1.5 million international visitors in 2014, a 12.3% year over year increase and has seen 10.9% growth in the first four months of 2015.
California Says Uber Driver Is Employee, Not a Contractor
In a ruling that fuels a long-simmering debate over some of Silicon Valley’s fastest-growing technology companies and the work they are creating, the California Labor Commissioner’s Office said that a driver for the ride-hailing service Uber should be classified as an employee, not an independent contractor.
The ruling ordered Uber to reimburse Barbara Ann Berwick $4,152.20 in expenses and other costs for the roughly eight weeks she worked as an Uber driver last year. While Uber has long positioned itself as merely an app that connects drivers and passengers — with no control over the hours its drivers work — the labor office cited many instances in which it said Uber acted more like an employer. Uber is appealing the decision.
The ruling does not apply beyond Ms. Berwick and could be altered if Uber’s appeal succeeds. Uber has also prevailed in at least five other states in keeping its definition of drivers as independent contractors. Yet the California ruling stands out because officials formally laid out their arguments for why Uber drivers are employees. That could bolster class-action lawsuits against the company in the state.
California law expressly requires employers to reimburse employees for business expenses and several suits proceeding against Uber are based on that state law.
Companies like Uber and its rival Lyft, and Instacart, a grocery delivery service, have long faced questions about whether they are creating the right kind of employment opportunities for both the economy and for workers. The technology companies have contended that their virtual marketplaces, in which people act as contractors and use their own possessions to provide services to the public at the touch of a smartphone button, afford workers flexibility and freedom.
Yet labor activists and others have said such roles — with people working as freelancers and having little certainty over their wages and job status — are simply a way for companies like Uber to minimize costs, even as they maintain considerable control over drivers’ workplace behavior. They say that such control is typically the hallmark of an employee relationship, which should bring with it benefits, more stable pay and greater job security.
The classification of freelancers is in dispute across a number of industries, including at other transportation companies. And the debate is set to escalate as the number of online companies and apps like Uber and others rises. Venture capitalists have poured more than $9.4 billion into such start-ups — known as on-demand companies — since 2010, according to data from CB Insights, a venture capital analysis firm, spawning things like on-demand laundry services and hair stylists.
“For anybody who has to pay the bills and has a family, having no labor protections and no job security is at best a mixed blessing,” said Robert Reich, former secretary of labor and a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. “At worst, it is a nightmare. Obviously some workers prefer to be independent contractors — but mostly they take these jobs because they cannot find better ones.”
The California ruling, which was made June 3 and came to light after Uber filed an appeal Tuesday evening, noted that the company provided drivers with phones and had a policy of deactivating its app if drivers were inactive for 180 days.
“Defendants hold themselves out as nothing more than a neutral technological platform, designed simply to enable drivers and passengers to transact the business of transportation,” the Labor Commissioner’s Office wrote about Uber. “The reality, however, is that defendants are involved in every aspect of the operation.”
In a statement, Uber said the decision was “nonbinding and applies to a single driver.” The company said individual cases about worker classification in at least five other states, including Georgia, Pennsylvania and Texas, have resulted in rulings that categorize drivers as contractors.
In May, authorities in Florida also said a former Uber driver should be classified as an employee to claim unemployment benefits, a decision Uber is appealing.
Yet politicians, lawyers and others quickly seized upon the California ruling as one that could have more repercussions for Uber and other similar companies.
“Today’s ruling from the California labor regulators demonstrates why federal policy makers need to re-examine the 20th-century definitions and employment classification we’re attempting to apply to a 21st-century work force,” said Senator Mark R. Warner, a Democrat from Virginia.
In California, Uber faces class-action lawsuits from drivers saying they were misclassified as independent contractors. Shannon Liss-Riordan, a Boston-based employee and labor rights lawyer who is involved in the lawsuits on behalf of drivers against Uber, said the commissioner’s office ruling would be “helpful” to the suits, which argue drivers should be reimbursed for expenses.
“This is a very big deal,” she said. “Uber has been fighting very hard against any decisions like this coming out, and when a fact-finder sat down and looked at the situation, they determined that Uber is an employer.”
Other Uber drivers may also be inspired to follow Ms. Berwick’s example, given that filing a claim with the California labor office is a relatively simple process.
“We’ll see if this starts a trend,” said Wilma B. Liebman, the former chairwoman of the National Labor Relations Board. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a flood of similar kinds of claims.”
Uber, co-founded five years ago by Travis Kalanick, who is its chief executive, has come to symbolize the worker debate by virtue of its scale. The company, based in San Francisco, has rapidly upended entrenched taxi and transportation industries with its model of letting people hail rides via their smartphones. Uber, which has collected billions of dollars in venture capital and is in talks to raise more money at a $50 billion valuation, is now operating in more than 300 cities across six continents.
To meet consumer demand, Uber’s driver ranks have swelled. At a presentation this month celebrating Uber’s fifth anniversary, Mr. Kalanick said the company had 26,000 drivers in New York City alone; 15,000 in London; 22,000 in San Francisco; 10,000 in Paris; and 20,000 in Chengdu, China.
“Every single month, Uber is adding hundreds of thousands of drivers around the world,” Mr. Kalanick said.
Uber has run into regulatory hurdles worldwide. In China, local authorities have raided Uber offices in two cities over questions about whether its service is legal because drivers are not licensed. In the United States, cities including Portland, Ore., have claimed that Uber operated an “illegal, unregulated transportation service.” It has also faced protests from cabdrivers.
Ms. Berwick, who lives in San Francisco, may seem like an unlikely David to the Uber Goliath. In the 1980s, she said, she founded Berwick Enterprises, a phone sex-entertainment company that is now an independent money manager, for which she said she did online trading as a volunteer. (The website of the company she started offers to trade on behalf of clients; neither Ms. Berwick nor the firm is registered as an investment adviser with the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.)
In a phone interview, Ms. Berwick said she started driving for Uber last summer because she had grown bored working by herself at her computer. But she quickly took issue with Uber’s policy of classifying drivers as independent contractors.
“People who drive people are employees,” Ms. Berwick said. “Bus drivers are employees. Paratransit drivers are employees.”
In the course of driving for Uber from July to September 2014, working 60 to 80 hours a week, she said, she earned about $11,000 before expenses and taxes.
“If you work it out, if I didn’t get compensated for expenses, I’d be working for less than minimum wage,” Ms. Berwick said. So she said she decided to file a claim against Uber last September with the California labor office, setting in motion the events that led to the ruling.
Ms. Berwick has a history of being litigious. Since 1991, she and her company have filed at least 20 lawsuits in California. In one case, she sued an employee of a pizza parlor for $500 in damages for leaving restaurant menus on her gate. She was not awarded any damages.
USDA looking into dolphin deaths at SeaWorld
A division of the United States Department of Agriculture is looking into two dolphin deaths at SeaWorld, including one earlier this week, a spokeswoman for the agency said.
The USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service looks into certain deaths – such as if an animal is young and dies unexpectedly - to see if there were any Animal Welfare Act violations.
Lagos, a 7-year-old bottlenose dolphin, died suddenly Monday of what appeared to be pneumonia. It had previously shown no signs of illness but late Sunday became reluctant to eat.
In March, another bottlenose dolphin died of what was deemed "acute intestinal necrosis." That dolphin was 22 years old. SeaWorld spokeswoman Becca Bides said in an email that "diseases that can cause this unfortunate condition have a rapid on-set and also are found in wild marine mammals."
"We care for more than 89,000 animals, including 88 bottlenose dolphins here in Orlando," Bides wrote. "We have dolphins in our parks that are nearly 50 and some, unfortunately, pass away at an earlier age."
Bides went on to say that "the animals in our care all benefit from world-class veterinary care that is highly regulated by the federal government and reaffirmed by the strict accreditation process of two professional zoological organizations."
APHIS also probed the February death of a beluga whale at SeaWorld that died of an infection of the jaw tissues. It had fractured the jaw during an "interaction" with another beluga, according to SeaWorld. APHIS found no Animal Welfare Act violations.
Hilton Garden Inn Miramar sold for $22.1 million
The 149-room Hilton Garden Inn Fort Lauderdale Southwest/Miramar has been sold.
An affiliate of Schulte — Hotel 14501 Hotel LP — has purchased the Hilton Garden Inn Fort Lauderdale Southwest/Miramar hotel for $22.1 million, according to property deeds filed Tuesday in Broward County.
The seller of the Hilton Garden Inn was Miramar Lodging LLC, a company with ties to MEI Hotels Inc. of Cleveland. The Miramar hotel at 14501 Hotel Road was developed in 2002, according to MEI's website.
Schulte's Florida hotels also include the DoubleTree by Hilton West Palm Beach Airport and Hotel Duval in Tallahassee, according to its corporate website.
Bill Vervaeke, CDME
West Palm Beach, FL 33411
(561) 795-5912 (Office & Facsimile)
(561) 318-9089 (Cellular)
Rising hotel occupancy slows in May
The spurt in hotel occupancy may be tapering off across South Florida, but tourism officials say the industry is still showing signs of improvement.
In May, Broward County hotels were 74.7 percent full — the same occupancy they had in May 2014, according to data released Tuesday by industry tracker STR Inc.
However, Broward's average daily room rate increased in May, rising to $118.35 from $114.13 a year ago. (Rising room rates are considered an indicator of the industry's health.)
"While we hit yet another record-breaking month in May, our occupancy reflects the absence of a couple of major conferences and sports activities," said Nicki Grossman, president of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau. "Our leisure business held up well and we had one of the highest occupancies in the state for May. Bring on summer!"
In Palm Beach County, hotel occupancy fell slightly in May to 69 percent, from 69.3 percent in the same month last year. Here, the shortfall in occupancy was attributed to largely to the increase in hotel room inventory in the destination.
"With the [accommodations] pie bigger overall, occupancy becomes a bigger challenge. There's more room in the inn, so to speak," said a spokesperson for Discover The Palm Beaches, the county's official tourism marketer.
The county's average daily rate climbed to $139.32 from $131.19, STR data showed.
That 6.2 percent increase in room rates from a year ago and a 9.6 percent uptick in total room revenue are indicators of continued strength in county tourism, he said. "All in all it's not a bad story."
In Miami-Dade County, hotel occupancy in May dropped to 76.5 percent from 78.4 percent last year. The average daily hotel rate rose to $177.08 from $169.28.
Orlando's hotels are outperforming 2014 in year-over-year metrics
Despite the Orlando hotel industry's year-over-year statistics increasing in three key performance metrics, May has been its worst month of 2015.
The region's hotels reported a 74.9 percent occupancy rate last month, according to STR Inc., a company that tracks supply and demand for the hotel industry domestically and internationally.
That's up 3.4 percent from last May but down nearly six percentage points from April's report, according to STR.
Historically, Orlando's May reports have been neither the best nor the worst for the area.
Villas of Grand Cypress in Orlando was ranked No. 8 of 25 best hotels in the U.S. also ranked No. 4 of 25 best luxury hotels.
The region's year-end average last year was 73.7 percent, according to STR.
Additionally, Orlando hotels reported the lowest RevPAR, a metric that determines the revenue made per available room, and average daily rates of the year.
Orlando's room prices averaged $105.93 a night a May, marginally up from $102.14 in May 2014. Revenue per room was up to $79.32 compared with $72.98 last year.
May's occupancy rate is still not as low as in November, when its 68 percent rate made it the worst month for Orlando hotels last year.
Despite nearly flat year-over-year performance, some of Orlando's changes were better than the overall industry.
The U.S. hotel industry's average occupancy increased by less than a percentage point in year-over-year reports. Orlando's rate is also well about the country's average rate of 67.5 percent, according to STR.
The hotel industry saw a strong May, as national averages also increased in RevPAR and average daily room rates.
"May 2015 broke the occupancy record for the month, and demand broke an unprecedented 104 million room nights," said Jan Freitag, senior vice president of strategic development for STR.
Six markets, including Nashville, Tenn., and Denver, reported double-digit increases in RevPAR.
Houston and New York were the only two markets to report decreases in all three categories, according to STR.
The nation's hotel industry has slowly been rebounding for the last six years, when the recession hit the industry hard.
Delta CEO: Gulf carriers a threat to Detroit jobs
The war of words over open skies agreements with airlines from Qatar and United Arab Emirates continued this week, with Delta Air Lines' CEO Richard Anderson warning that thousands of Detroit area jobs were being threatened by "the massive subsidization of the Gulf carriers."
Speaking at the Detroit Economic Club, Anderson said that the Gulf-based airlines receive more than $42 billion in subsidies from their governments, undermining fair competition, according to a statement from The Partnership for Open and Fair Skies.
"What we've discovered at Delta Air Lines is we compete against a lot of state-owned and state-subsidized enterprises," he said. "When the playing field is relatively level, we win because we have these great people that are committed to their company and committed to their customers. But when the playing field is so far tilted, it is difficult in any industry to be able to compete against governments."
Anderson characterized this issue as particularly important to Detroit, which he called the "gateway into Asia" and where he said there would be about 130,000 Delta departures this year. He added that "every one of the nonstop, widebody flights we put to Asia supports about 900 to 1,000 jobs."
In the statement, The Partnership for Open and Fair Skies said that the Gulf airlines have grown "four times faster than U.S. carriers without stimulating new market demand and they're growing at the expense of U.S. airlines."
"We are supporters of fair trade... but like many trade relationships there are outliers," Anderson said. "We support open skies, we support open and free trade but in this instance we have bilateral agreements that are being violated by those countries."
Anderson's comments came shortly after the U.S. Travel Association released research indicating that these Open Skies agreements added billions of dollars in economic activity and tax revenue, as well as tens of thousands of jobs, to the US economy.
Tourico prebuys more than 90K rooms in Paris, New York
Tourico Holidays this week said it agreed to prepurchase more than 90,000 hotel room nights at two Hyatt-branded properties in Paris and New York, as the online travel wholesaler looks to lock in room rates for its travel agent clients during the next 20 months.
Closely held Tourico prebought 47,000 room nights at the Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile through February 2017, indicating that the wholesaler planned to sell about 80 rooms a night on average at the 950-room hotel. Tourico sells 2,100 rooms a day through its 425 supplier hotels in Paris and said Paris room-night bookings are up 36% this year.
Tourico also prepurchased 44,000 room nights at the Grand Hyatt New York through March 2016, indicating an average booking of about 160 rooms a night at the 1,306-room hotel. Tourico sold more than a half-million room nights in New York last year.
Lauren Volcheff, vice president of North American sales and marketing at Tourico, said the room-night figures represented "very large blocks" and said the company typically prebuys between 2,000 and 20,000 room-nights per year from its hotel partners.
"Both hotels meet a short list of criteria that makes them perfect for a prebuy agreement: amazing location in areas tourists love, a lot of rooms for sale and a true partner at the hotel and corporate level," Volcheff said.
Tourico, which generates more than $1 billion in annual revenue, continues to try to bring down its costs by buying inventory from travel suppliers in bulk. The company, which has 4,900 travel-professional clients in 100 countries, said in March that it would start prepurchasing tickets for activities and attractions such as Las Vegas' High Roller observation wheel, adding that the discounted rates would allow it to pass on savings to its travel-agent customers.
Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile was formerly the Concorde Lafayette before Hyatt reached an agreement to rebrand the property in 2013. The Grand Hyatt New York completed a $130 million renovation in late 2011.
Airline industry, government at odds over emissions standards
As the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) moves to catch up with overseas regulators by enacting emissions standards for the aviation industry, the largest U.S. airline trade group is pushing back.
The trade group, Airlines for America (A4A), argues that the industry has already done its part to reduce emissions and that it now is up to the government to address improvements to the air traffic control system that could further reduce airline fuel consumption.
Just weeks after the EPA reported that its early findings confirmed that aircraft carbon dioxide emissions contribute to global warming, A4A was gearing up for a lobbying effort that will highlight both the industry's fuel-efficiency gains and the need for the federal government to update aircraft-control systems. A4A is pointing to data suggesting that U.S. carriers have more than doubled fuel efficiency since 1978 and that airlines account for 5% of the U.S. economy, but just 2% of the country's emissions.
"The U.S. airlines carried 20% more passengers and cargo in 2014 than they did in 2000, while emitting 8% less carbon dioxide," A4A spokesman Vaughn Jennings said. "Coupled with the long-term fuel efficiency improvements the U.S. airlines have accomplished [dating] back to the late 1970s, there is a real question as to whether any [greenhouse-gas] emissions regulation is needed."
As it is, the EPA appears to be following up efforts by the United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which has been trying to address the issue of aircraft emissions for at least five years and is pushing for the global aircraft industry to boost fuel-efficiency by 1.5% a year through 2020. ICAO is working with the industry to develop aircraft emissions standards, which could be disclosed as soon as early next year.
One burning question for airlines is whether the EPA's move toward emissions standards would end up creating a system in which different emissions mandates would apply to aircraft flying in Europe and those flying in North America. Similar conflicting standards already exist in the global automobile industry. And it's not clear which standard would then apply for aircraft used for transatlantic flights.
In a June 10 statement, the EPA said it was pursuing policies "that are equitable across national boundaries," but it did not explain what that meant or offer further detail. Meanwhile, Jennings said it was "critical" that international emissions standards be common.
Bob Offutt, senior technology analyst at Phocuswright, said that while it was unclear which standards would apply on transatlantic flights, he expected them to be similar, with the greatest potential for differences arising with when the emissions standards would be phased in.
Regardless, Offutt said the EPA's timing is no accident. The concept of aircraft pollution and its potential impact on global weather patterns have been discussed in scientific journals since at least 9/11, when, in the days following those terrorist attacks, flights were grounded, offering a chance to test theories on the impact of aircraft emissions.
Even so, in the ensuing years as the aviation industry was riddled by lackluster customer demand and higher fuel costs, the EPA appears to have taken a hands-off approach to the issue of aircraft emissions and their potential impact on global warming.
What has changed in recent years is that fuel prices will have fallen 20% between 2013 and 2015, while worldwide passenger departures will increase 6.8% this year, to 3.53 billion, and air transport will boost passenger revenue by 4.3% this year, to $823 billion, according to IATA.
As a result, many U.S. airlines are reporting record profits. United reported net income of $1.13 billion last year, compared with a $723 million net loss in 2012, while American Airlines earned net income of $2.88 billion in 2014, compared with a $1.88 billion loss two years prior.
"The airlines had complained that they were struggling. This is old news, of course," Offutt said. "The EPA may have been holding off for a while so that [the airlines] could be profitable. Now, the EPA is saying, 'your turn.'"
Indeed, the EPA noted in its June 10 statement about addressing aircraft greenhouse-gas emissions that U.S. aircraft account for 29% of global aircraft emissions as well as about 11% of emissions from the domestic transportation sector.
"In 2009, EPA determined that GHG [grenhouse-gas] pollution from cars and light trucks threatens Americans' health and welfare by leading to long-lasting changes in our climate that can have a range of negative effects. The body of science on human-induced climate change has strengthened, supporting today's proposed finding … that GHGs emitted from aircraft engines contribute to pollution that causes climate change endangering public health and welfare."
While the airlines have not denied those assertions, A4A has already made it clear that the industry feels that a large part of solution to the emissions problem lies with the country's outdated air traffic control system, which damages the industry's efficiency. A replacement Gen-3 system has long been a political football in Congress. The airlines and A4A will likely use the EPA data in their push for the government to transition from an outdated radar-based infrastructure to a satellite-based GPS.
"While the A4A airlines are doing all that they can to promote efficiencies within the current air traffic management system, the limitations of that system account for over 10% of unnecessary fuel burn and resulting emissions," Jennings said.
Lufthansa offers first class passengers Porsche 911 experience
Lufthansa First Class passengers and Lufthansa Private Jet guests can now enliven the waiting time before their next take-off with a unique experience - taking a Porsche 911 or Panamera for a spin through Munich, the sub-Alpine landscape or Lower Bavaria.
The Porsche First Class Excitement offer is available for all Lufthansa, SWISS or Austrian Airlines passengers, Lufthansa HON Circle members and Lufthansa Private Jet guests who possess a valid First Class boarding ticket for that day.
“With Lufthansa First Class, we offer our customers the highest travel quality.
“This is suitably complemented by the exclusive offer from Porsche, which turns the waiting period before take-off into a memorable experience,” said Thomas Klühr, Lufthansa executive board member for finance.
For guests, the Lufthansa First Class Personal Assistant accepts reservations in the First Class Lounge and arranges the car rental.
Passengers can book their sports car online before the flight, or make a spontaneous on-the-spot decision, as long as the chosen offer is available.
Back at the airport, a First Class flight starts as usual - a limousine takes passengers straight to the apron position beside the aircraft.
Once on board, passengers enjoy First Class menus by famous star chefs and a selection of premier wines.
Anaheim Rebrands as a City That Goes Beyond Disneyland
For visitors to Disneyland Resort in California, Anaheim has sometimes been an after thought—a place you travel to in order to experience the theme park. But Anaheim is actually much more than that and it has developed a new brand and logo to prove it.
The Anaheim/Orange County Visitor & Convention Bureau (AOCVCB), which was a bit of a mouthful to say, on June 24 unveiled its new name, Visit Anaheim, and a new URL, www.VisitAnaheim.org. After more than 20 years as AOCVCB, the destination marketing organization decided to introduce a fresh new brand that reflects the past, present and future of the city, while encouraging travelers to visit.
According to Jay Burress, president and CEO of Visit Anaheim, the new brand came after a year of consumer, meetings and travel trade research showed the city needed a new name and new brand. “Visit Anaheim is a name that travel enthusiasts and conventioneers can easily find and understand,” he said.
“It evokes a sense of discovery and clearly communicates that we have an incredible, awe-inspiring destination that people should come see for themselves.”
As the second largest city in Orange County, Anaheim has undergone a massive revitalization and beautification program over the past decade and is home to some of California’s top attractions, entertainment and sports venues, theme parks, and a growing restaurant and craft brewing scene.
New attractions include the Packing District, located at the intersection of Anaheim Boulevard and Santa Ana Street, which includes the restored Packard Building and former Car Showroom, Farmers Park and the restored citrus Packing House, including Cooks Chapel, a community kitchen private event venue, as well as The Backyard, an outdoor event area with a fireplace and orange grove. The Packing House features more than 20 artisan eateries. In addition, the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC) is transforming how residents travel. This transportation hub offers a wide variety of transit, dining, retail and entertainment options in one location.
Anaheim also is set to see a dramatic expansion of its hotel inventory as it adds 4,000 hotel rooms in the next few years, including two planned four-diamond properties. Last year it welcomed 1.2 million meetings and convention visitors, many of whom took advantage of the city’s convention center, a facility that is already the largest in California but will be expanding further after a $200 million project is completed in 2017.
Burress said Anaheim’s new logo pays tribute to the unique qualities of Anaheim. “It also perfectly encapsulates the next stage we are entering into as an organization,” he said. “We are here to help inspire the imagination of every visitor that comes to our destination—whether they’re a sports fan, adrenaline junkie, beach lover, theme park enthusiast or foodie—and change the way they see the world.”
Visit Anaheim conducted multiple focus groups and interviews in and around Anaheim, Orange County, Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Jose to better understand how travelers viewed the destination, which includes Anaheim, Garden Grove and the greater Orange County. It found that Anaheim’s broad consumer and business travel audiences were not aware of what the destination offers and what it represents.
Designed by Kansas City-based travel marketing agency MMGY Global, the Visit Anaheim logo has multiple design elements that speak directly to Anaheim and Orange County’s past, present and future.
The big “A” recalls the number of big A logos around the destination; the looped “h” is similar to an Anaheim logo created by a former Disney creative; the dot over the “i” is Disney’s dot; and the palm tree icon speaks to the City of Anaheim’s robust revitalization. The logo’s colors, blue and marigold, are a tribute to Southern California’s ocean views, clear blue skies and warm sunny days.
To celebrate its new branding, Visit Anaheim took to the streets of New York City’s Flatiron district on June 24 with a special event where New Yorkers were invited to experience what Visit Anaheim is all about. Partnering with famed 3D pavement artist Joe Hill, three large, interactive 3D illustrations were installed in front of the Flatiron Building at 175 5th Ave.
Allianz Survey: More Travel, Less Spending By Americans In 2015
Although more Americans are confident they will vacation this summer, those who do plan to spend significantly less while on holiday, mainly due to wider utilization of “sharing economy” travel options.
Those are among the findings of an Insurance Vacation Confidence Index survey released this week by travel insurance provider Allianz Global Assistance USA.
Americans will spend $85.5 billion on summer vacations in 2015, according to the survey, down 13.5 percent from $98.8 billion in 2014. The decrease comes despite a 0.5 percent increase in the number of Americans they poll identifies as “confident they will take a vacation this summer.”
The average American taking a vacation this summer will spend $1,621, down from $1,895 in 2014. More travelers (19 percent) say they will spend less than $400 on their vacation this year than in 2014, when 13 percent of travelers said they spend under $400.
Allianz officials say the results largely point to one factor: the willingness of travelers ages 18 to 34 to utilize non-traditional travel, transportation and hospitality services including Airbnb, Uber, Lyft, GetAround, and Feastly.
The six percent increase in travelers intending to spend less than $400 on their vacation since 2014 is “a big, big number,” said Dan Durazo, Allianz’ director of communications. “It’s pretty big jump. This is being driven, we feel, by millennials who have told us that they‘re very comfortable with the sharing economy,” he said. “They think the sharing economy is a good way to save money while on vacation.
“Millennials are quite familiar with these services,” said Durazo. “Sixty percent said they trust these services, which is a pretty big percentage compared to 37 percent of all other travelers. Forty-seven percent of Americans are aware of at least one these services but 58 percent of millennials are,” he said.
Nearly 40 percent of millennials said they plan to spend less than $400 on summer travel, twice the number of all other age groups combined. “You’ve got higher awareness and higher trust of sharing economy travel services by millennials,” Durazo added.
Also, while 17 percent of Americans said they’re likely to use a sharing economy service during their summer vacation, 28 percent of young adults under the age of 35 said they plan to book travel and related services with sharing economy providers.
Millennials were also found to be the most confident of any age group in taking a summer vacation, with 50.5 percent saying they expect to vacation this summer, said Durazo.
The survey did include a slim glimmer of light for traditional travel providers: all age groups agreed that established travel providers, including travel agents, OTAs, hotels and resorts, offer “better experiences and services” compared with sharing economy providers.
These Allianz survey findings are based on an Ipsos telephone poll of a nationally representative sample of 1,000 randomly selected adults conducted June 5 to 9, 2015. The results are considered accurate within plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
New York Impounded 496 Vehicles in Uber Crackdown
One of the fastest growing ways of getting around is ride-sharing service Uber, but officials in New York City are cracking down on drivers who are picking up illegal street hails by seizing their cars when caught.
According to Rebecca Harshbarger of the New York Post, the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) seized 496 vehicles associated with Uber drivers who were making illegal passenger pickups between April 29 and June 15.
Drivers using the Uber app are only allowed to pick up passengers who arraigned for the ride through the service or those who base dispatch approved for pick up. One of the places where officials found the most violators was at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The fear is that with an estimated 19,000 drivers affiliated with Uber and no cap on the number of drivers in New York City, the streets of the city will eventually become overwhelmed by the number of ride-sharing cars, including both Uber and standard taxis.
New York Taxiworkers Alliance representative Bhairavi Desai told the New York Post, “I think it’s honestly a reflection of the oversaturation of the vehicles, and the desperation everyone is feeling on the streets to earn a living. At least they’re beginning to take action.”
Before the recent decision to impound the cars of those drivers found to be operating illegally, offenders would have been given a summons, but the implementation of more severe punishments should help deter many current or potential future offenders.
New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers head, Fernando Mateo, told Harshbarger, “If you’re willing to risk breaking the law, you have to be willing to lose your car. I would recommend, go back to the basics. Everyone has an app. You can’t make a living with just the Uber application.”
Tourists Arrested For Crashing Drone Into Cathedral
Here we go. We all knew this would start to happen. Dopey tourists flying their drones too close to something and eventually crashing it. Yesterday in Milan, three Korean men who were in town for the Expo 2015 were flying their drone around the Cathedral of Milan.
They caught the attention of the company that is working on the cathedral who alerted authorities.
When the tourists were approached, they lost control of their vehicle and crashed it into the scaffolding of the workers and caused some minor damage. There is no word if or when they will be charged, but they were taken in by the authorities for questioning.
This is not the first time that people have gotten in trouble with their drones overseas. In October of last year, an Israeli tourist was jailed for flying over one of Paris’ main attractions. And the February before a French Foreign Legion member was held by police after making a video of the Eiffel tower.
England also has strict laws when it comes to operating drones. The law states drones must not be flown within 150 meters of any congested area, or within 50 meters of buildings not owned by their operator.
Here at home, the FAA is about to clear commercial drones within the next year. Amazon has already come out and announced that they will be beginning drone delivery as soon as federal law allows. The personal drone war is starting to come about as well. In July of last year a man was arrested for filming with his drone outside of a hospital into an examination room. He was eventually acquitted. But you never know where this is going to go.
So make sure you check with local authorities before you take your fancy drone out and start filming for that new perspective. You want to make sure that you don’t end up with a new perscpetive of the back of a polica car.
Virgin commits to second summer of Belfast-Orlando flights
Virgin Atlantic has confirmed that its summer Belfast to Orlando flights, which launch this week, will return in 2016.
The airline said the weekly service, which will run for four weeks this summer, will return at the end of June next year.
The service is part of Virgin Atlantic's joint venture partnership with Delta Air Lines.
Virgin said 50% of the bookings were made as part of a holiday package with its tour operator Virgin Holidays.
A Boeing 747-400 aircraft will operate next summer's Belfast to Orlando service on Thursdays from June 23.
Ryanair bomb scare: man arrested for hoax call
Warsaw Modlin Airport was closed to incoming flights this morning after a security scare on a Ryanair flight.
The airline confirmed that an anonymous hoax call was made to the airport saying there was an explosive device on a flight due to leave Warsaw for Oslo at 8.40am.
"The airport security authorities ordered an immediate inspection of the aircraft, which hadn't yet boarded, and closed the airport to inbound arrivals as a security precaution," said a Ryanair spokeswoman.
"The security sweep confirmed this was a hoax and the aircraft has returned to service, while the airport has since reopened."
Ryanair apologised to the customers of the outbound Oslo flight for any inconvenience caused by the hoax call.
It said the aircraft has now been cleared to return to service and the airport has reopened.
A 48-year-old man has been arrested after the call was traced to his home.
Modlin is a small, auxiliary airport in Warsaw used only by Ryanair.
Initial reports said the plane involved had made an emergency landing but Ryanair said this was not the case as the search was made before passengers had even boarded.
UK Airline calls on industry to get tough with unruly passengers
Jet2.com is calling for industry-wide action to tackle a 'shocking' rise in disruptive passenger behaviour.
The move comes week after the airline banned a passenger for life for his behaviour on a flight from Leeds Bradford to Alicante which caused the pilot to divert the plane to Toulouse.
Following the incident, the airline conducted some research among other airlines and travel companies and noted a sharp rise in bad behaviour.
It is now working with the British Air Transport Association and Airport Operators Association to try to get the message out to consumers that unruly behaviour onboard aircraft won't be tolerated by the airlines.
Managing director Phil Ward said that, on average, Jet2 prevents six passengers a day boarding aircraft due to their unruly conduct.
"Only yesterday in Alicante we had the police meet two people from Manchester who were unruly and rude and we have refused them travel to return home at the weekend," said Ward.
Due to a rise in disorderly - mostly drink-related - behaviour on aircraft, airlines are more likely than ever to take a zero-tolerance approach, denying them boarding, banning them for life and, in some cases, taking legal action against them.
Jet2 is taking legal action against two passengers at the moment.
"We have told our ground staff, cabin crew and flight crew that if they deny boarding or they need to divert due to a disruptive passenger, we are totally behind them. We won't tolerate this, for the sake of our other passengers," said Ward.
"We need to get the message across to the rest of our customers that we are tackling bad behaviour on board and we will look after them.
Ward said the problem had become worse over the past two years, with Jet2 alone seeing a 20% rise in incidents in the past 12 months, but he said it wasn't only short-haul budget airlines that were suffering. "It's Virgin Atlantic to the US, United to Chicago, this is a growing problem for all airlines," he said.
"Cabin crew increasingly have to deal with people displaying abusive, racist and often noisy and aggressive conduct, causing misery and disruption for other passengers nearby."
Ward called on travel agents to help by advising customers not to drink excessively before or during a flight and warning them that any bad behaviour on board could land them in trouble.
"We are doing our bit to get the message out there at the start of the holiday season but we need the trade and the public to help."
Taxi Drivers Protest Uber in Clashes Across France
Taxi drivers took to the streets across France on Thursday in protests against the expansion of Uber, the ride-booking service.
French taxi drivers blocked the entrances to Paris’s major airports and train stations, while disruptions were also reported in other cities, including Marseille and Aix-en-Provence in the South.
In Grenoble, near the border with Italy, taxi associations burned tires on the highway, while in Paris, police officers in riot gear used tear gas to disrupt the protests.
The anger from French taxi drivers is the latest in a series of challenges confronting Uber, which has been accused by taxi associations and some policy makers of breaking national transportation laws and of creating unfair competition to traditional taxis. The ride-booking service faces regulatory scrutiny in many of the countries in which it operates.
The growing anger against the American technology company, however, has not stopped its meteoric rise from a small start-up founded in San Francisco in 2009 to a transportation giant that is now valued at more than $50 billion. Uber, which connects drivers with potential passengers through a smartphone app, operates in more than 300 cities and 57 countries, including the United States and China.
The latest problems in France relate to Uber’s low-cost UberPop service, which allows drivers without professional chauffeur licenses to pick up passengers through the use of their smartphones. While these drivers must pass security checks, French taxi associations claim that the Uber drivers do not comply with the country’s transportation rules and should not be allowed to operate.
In contrast to Uber drivers, French taxi drivers must pay up to $270,000 for an operating license. The French drivers say Uber undercuts existing services.
In recent weeks, Uber’s low-cost service has expanded beyond Paris. That growth comes despite a ruling last year by a French court that banned unregistered drivers from picking up passengers. Uber has appealed the ruling, though police officers have begun stopping UberPop drivers in the French capital, who may then be fined.
This is not the first time that European taxi drivers have voiced their anger by taking to city streets. Last year, more than 10,000 drivers in cities like London, Madrid and Milan staged a one-day protest against Uber.
Several European cities, including Berlin and Amsterdam, have banned some of the company’s services, saying that they do not comply with local transportation rules. And in Spain, Uber closed its operations after a judge ruled in December that the company’s low-cost service did not conform to Spanish laws and could amount to unfair competition for taxi drivers.
In response, Uber has asked the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, to intervene, saying the bans violate the bloc’s rules against discriminating between rival services.
Disney serves up poo at Animal Kingdom sweets shop
A new shop at Disney’s Animal Kingdom is serving up desserts that look like varieties of animal droppings. Four kinds of poo are now in the case amid the caramel apples and marshmallow treats at Zuri’s Sweets Shop.
Disney World's Animal Kingdom Wants You to Eat Poop for Dessert
Disney World doesn't exactly have a reputation for serving haute cuisine, but the park's newest offering quite literally looks like crap: The Orlando Sentinel notes that a new store at Disney's Animal Kingdom "is serving up desserts that look like varieties of animal droppings." The manure-themed confections are sold at Zuri's Sweets Shop, which opened last week in the park's Africa section.
According to brave reporter Dewayne Bevil, the chocolate poop — which looks vaguely like truffles or cake balls — comes in several different varieties including elephant ("dominated by oats and peanut butter") and giraffe ("fudgy, like a brownie). While the display case doesn't actually identify the treats as poop, the itemized receipt reportedly prints out terms such as "Poo, Giraffe."
Bill Vervaeke, CDME
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This airline is offering a new perk for first-class: better air
One airline is offering better air — yes, air — to its first-class passengers.
When you pay extra to fly fancy with German airline Lufthansa, you’ll now get the benefit of recently installed humidifiers, the Times of India reports.
“It gives a totally different experience,” Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr told the Times of India. “Passengers arrive in a much better shape after a long-haul flight.”
One Lufthansa official told the Times that the humidifiers, which have been installed on the airline’s Airbus A-380s, will improve passengers’ sleep and well-being — and even the way their food tastes.
The new additions should increase the humidity levels in first class from 5 percent to 15 or 25 percent, the official told the Times, which could help prevent itchy eyes and dry throats.
DOJ investigating airlines for possible collusion
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government is investigating possible collusion between major airlines to limit available seats, which keeps airfares high, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press.
The civil antitrust investigation by the Justice Department appears to focus on whether airlines illegally signaled to each other how quickly they would add new flights, routes and extra seats.
A letter received Tuesday by major U.S. carriers demands copies of all communications the airlines had with each other, Wall Street analysts and major shareholders about their plans for passenger-carrying capacity.
Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Pierce confirmed Wednesday that the department was investigating potential "unlawful coordination" among some airlines. She declined to comment further, including about which airlines are being investigated.
Thanks to a series of mergers starting in 2008, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and United now control more than 80 percent of the seats in the domestic travel market. During that period, they have eliminated unprofitable flights, filled a higher percentage of seats on planes and made a very public effort to slow growth in order to command higher airfares.
It worked. The average domestic airfare rose 13% from 2009 to 2014, when adjusted for inflation, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. And that doesn't include the billions of dollars airlines collect from fees. During the past 12 months, the airlines took in $3.6 billion in bag fees and another $3 billion in reservation change fees.
All of that has led to record profits for the industry. In the past two years, U.S. airlines earned a combined $19.7 billion.
This year could lead to even higher profits thanks to a massive drop in the price airlines pay for jet fuel, their single highest expense. In April, U.S. airlines paid $1.94 a gallon, down 34% from the year before.
Debt-laden Puerto Rico says travel business is good
As Puerto Rico staggers under a crushing $73 billion debt load that Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla concedes is unpayable, tourism appears to be an economic bright spot.
The sector is performing well across the board in stayover arrivals, hotel occupancy and cruise passenger arrivals, according to Ingrid Rivera Rocafort, executive director of the Puerto Rico Tourism Co.
While the economic fallout from the financial crisis could be severe, it is not expected to have much impact on tourism, she said. “We have successfully worked to improve attractions, enhance our cruise piers, open new hotels, attract investors and increase airlift over the past three years and we will continue to do so,” Rivera Rocafort said.
Meet Puerto Rico, the nonprofit organization that markets meetings and conventions, “continues to operate in a fiscally sound environment. Airports, hotels, taxis, communication services and other elements of Puerto Rico’s tourism infrastructure are not affected by the government’s financial crisis,” according to Milton Segarra, president and CEO.
The organization is closely monitoring dozens of clients and groups with events planned in Puerto Rico.
“No group has canceled and we will continue to provide information to them and to those considering Puerto Rico as a venue, so that they feel secure in having made the right decision to come to Puerto Rico,” Segarra said.
Blue Horizon gambling cruise ship to launch within 10 days
Casino day cruise ship Blue Horizon is expected to begin sailing from the Port of Palm Beach within the next 10 days, a company official said Tuesday.
Robert Weisberg, a partner in PB Gaming, which plans to operate the 600-passenger gambling, entertainment and buffet dining ship out of the Riviera Beach port, said he’s waiting for the state to issue a liquor license.
“We are going to be ready to go sometime this week or early next week,” Weisberg said.
Tickets are $25 per person, but each passenger will receive a discount of at least $5.
The ship will sail in the morning (11 a.m. to 4 p.m.) and evening Tuesday through Saturday (7 p.m. to midnight, but until 12:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.) There will be no sailings on Monday, and Sunday will have only one sailing, a champagne brunch with an 11 a.m. departure.
Manuel “Manny” Almira, the port’s executive director, said, “The Port anxiously awaits the first sailing and we’re looking forward to a very anticipated successful operation.”
PB Gaming bills the Blue Horizon as “the only place in South Florida to play craps, roulette and bet on sports book.” It also features blackjack and over 250 popular slots and bingo.
Port spokeswoman Tara Monks said the vessel was awarded its Certificate of Inspection from the U.S. Coast Guard the week of June 22.
In May, the port commission approved a five-year, three-month agreement with PB Gaming, which is using the same ship as the previous gambling day cruise out of the port.
As the Island Breeze, the ship carried about 11,000 passengers on 100 day cruises from March to June last year. The company that operated it, IBI Palm Beach, filed for bankruptcy in November.
The Island Breeze’s largest creditor, SourcePoint LLC, took over the ship’s charter earlier this year. Weisberg is also a partner in SourcePoint, a private equity firm based in Puerto Rico.
Under its contract with the port, PB Gaming must pay $730,000 a year in passenger fees, an estimated $80,000 in parking fees and $36,470 a year to lease 2,605 square feet of offices on the port administration building’s fourth floor.
After IBI Palm Beach’s failure, the port required PB Gaming to pay a $250,000 nonrefundable cash deposit in March and another $150,000 in pre-passenger payments.
The Island Breeze was one of five casino cruises to nowhere that have sailed form the port in recent years, but stopped operating. Prior to being named the Island Breeze, the ship was called the Black Diamond.
Tri-Rail pledge boosts massive All Aboard MiamiCentral station project
If there were any doubts about whether All Aboard Florida would be able to pull off it’s planned rail line linking southeast Florida to Orlando, the sheer size of the company’s station planned in the heart of downtown Miami might be enough to dispel them.
Construction fencing spanning six-city blocks now hides much of the work going on at the site, located within walking distance of the American Airlines Arena and a short shuttle ride from PortMiami, which processed more multi-day cruise passengers than any other port in the world last year.
Soon there will be another link — this week the Miami-Dade Commission pledged $13.9 million to connect Tri-Rail to the planned MiamiCentral project.
Once complete, the project will include five train tracks, which will be elevated 50 feet above a mix of businesses and restaurants.
Above the tracks, All Aboard is building three towers. Those buildings will include two residential towers with 800 apartments and a third tower with 190,000 square feet of office space.
All Aboard will soon begin construction on a fourth building, located just west of the tracks. The building will include 125,000 square feet of retail and office space and 1,100 parking spaces to serve the station.
As part of a second construction phase, All Aboard plans to build a “super tower” with 600,000 square feet of office space, 280 residences, and 250 hotel rooms.
If you lost count, that’s nearly 1 million square feet of office and retail space and more than 1,300 apartments, condos and hotel rooms. And All Aboard Florida’s trains, coupled with three other South Florida rail lines, will carry a steady stream of passengers to the downtown hub.
Michael Reininger, All Aboard Florida’s president, said the station in itself will be a shopping and entertainment destination — similar to CityPlace in West Palm Beach, but on a much larger scale. The company is already recruiting retailers and restaurants to fill the ground floor.
“You will want to come here,” Reininger said. “And you may never leave the station.”
On Wednesday, construction crews were busy drilling the holes that will serve as the foundation for MiamiCentral.
Crews have already completed about 1,100 of the 1,650 foundation pilings needed for the project, All Aboard officials said. Vertical construction is expected to begin in September.
The Miami-Dade County Commission’s pledge was expected, but it’s just the first of three similar pledges needed to make this part of the All Aboard project a reality. The goal is to link All Aboard’s Miami station to Tri-Rail, a commuter rail line that runs between Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami Dade counties.
The link will allow Palm Beach County residents to ride Tri-Rail trains to downtown Miami. Of the 50 daily Tri-Rail trains, 26 are expected to travel to All Aboard’s Miami station.
The Miami station will also connect to two other Miami-Dade rail projects — Metromover, a 4.4-mile electrically powered transit system, and Metrorail, a 25-mile rail line with nearly two dozen stations.
The two elevated rail lines run just west of the site of All Aboard Florida’s Miami station, giving passengers a bird’s-eye view of the construction below.
Together county-run lines carry passengers between downtown Miami and more than three dozen other destinations, including the Miami International Airport, the Adrienne Arsht Center, the financial district, the Brickell Avenue area, and mall and shopping districts.
“There are very few integrated stations like this in major cities in the country,” Reininger said. “This connects all of the neighborhoods of South Florida together in a really interesting way.”
All Aboard Florida plans to run 32 trains a day — 16 round trips — on the Florida East Coast Railway tracks with stops in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Orlando. Service is expected to start in 2017.
Treasure Coast officials have been battling to block the $2.9 billion project, saying it will bring increase noise, traffic and safety hazards as trains travel up to 110 mph through their communities and historic downtowns. Martin and Indian River counties have pledged a combine $4.1 million to fight All Aboard Florida. Both have filed federal lawsuits challenging $1.75 billion in tax-exempt private activity bonds that the company plans to use to help pay for the project.
Last month, a federal judge denied a request by the two counties for an injunction blocking the bond sale. Despite the ruling, Treasure Coast officials have vowed to continue their fight.
The legal skirmish has not dissuaded All Aboard Florida. Construction is underway at all three of the company’s South Florida stations.
Survey: One-Third of Americans Open to Idea of Leaving Country
On Saturday we celebrate our independence day, and judging by a poll from TransferWise, a U.K. peer-to-peer money transfer service, many of us would be happy to declare independence from our own country.
A total of 35 percent of respondents would consider leaving the United States to live elsewhere and 14 percent said they would consider a move within the next five years.
A total of 65 percent of Americans said that given the right reasons, they would consider a move. And what are the right reasons? A 36 percent total cited a better quality of life, 33 percent cited a lower cost of living and 31 percent cited the appeal of new experiences.
A whopping 84 percent of respondents say the United States should make itself more appealing. But how? A 58 percent majority mentioned more affordable healthcare, 51 percent pointed to lower taxes and 48 percent mentioned education improvements.
One danger confronting investors of every country now is the volatility of global financial markets. Star bond fund manager Bill Gross of Janus Group, like many others, is concerned.
With banks hobbled in their market activity by more stringent regulation since the 2008 financial crisis, a liquidity crunch represents a real danger, he writes in a commentary.
And what could spark such a crisis?
"A central bank mistake leading to lower bond prices and a stronger dollar," Gross writes. The Federal Reserve may begin raising interest rates in September.
Greece. A default/restructuring will lead to more worries for weaker eurozone economies, he says.
China. "It's the mystery meat of economic sandwiches: you never know what’s in there," Gross explains.
"Credit has expanded more rapidly in recent years than any major economy in history, a sure warning sign."
Emerging markets crisis.
Geopolitical risks.
"A butterfly’s wing. Chaos theory suggests that a small change in non-linear systems could result in large changes elsewhere," Gross writes. "Call this kooky, but in a levered financial system, small changes can upset the status quo."
TSA Worker Tweets Photo of Passenger's $75,000
See the video here: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-07-02/tsa-worker-tweets-photo-of-passenger-s-75-000?cmpid=yhoo
At least 36 dead after ferry capsizes in Philippines
At least 36 people died Thursday after a ferry with 189 passengers and crew aboard capsized in the Philippines, officials said.
The Philippine Star said the M/B Kim Nirvana overturned soon after midday local time, shortly after leaving the central port of Ormoc City on the island of Leyte. It was headed for Camotes Island on the island province of Cebu, about 27 miles to the south.
Coast guard spokesman Armand Balilo said the wooden outrigger ferry was lashed by strong waves, the Associated Press reported. It wasn't immediately clear what caused the vessel to overturn.
"There wasn't any storm or any gale. We're trying to find out (why it happened)," Balilo told AFP.
At least 127 passengers were rescued by nearby fishing boats and coast guard personnel or swam to safety off Ormoc, and at least 26 people were missing, the AP said. Balilo said the captain and some of the crew were rescued and are in custody pending an investigation.
Balilo told AFP that the ferry's outriggers appeared to have broken in the accident, and said that it was possible the crew had committed a navigational error.
Ciriaco Tolibao from Ormoc's disaster risk reduction and management office told the agency that divers were searching for survivors. "We're scouring the ship for more survivors who may be trapped inside the hull," he said. "We hope to finish the rescue before dark and before it starts to rain."
He said many of the passengers were traders taking farm produce and other items to the Camotes, AFP said.
Mary Jane Drake, who was traveling with her mother and American husband, told the AP that the ferry was pulling slowly out of the port when it suddenly flipped to the left in strong waves and overturned. She said that she, her mother and husband swam to safety from underneath the vessel.
"No one was able to jump out because it overturned very swiftly," she said. "There was no time to jump."
Her husband, Lawrence Drake, 48, a retired firefighter from Rochester, N.Y., added that he ran to one side of the boat to try to balance it.
"I jumped out of my seat and ran to the front as far as I could, and tried to lean over," he said. "I am a big guy, and tried to push the boat back over but it was way too late."
TSA pays millions for bag claims
See the video: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-07-02/tsa-worker-tweets-photo-of-passenger-s-75-000?cmpid=yhoo
It's easier than ever to just text the hotel front desk for your embarrassing requests
Whenever I have to call a hotel front desk from a foreign country, there’s always that moment when I choke and wonder what language to lead with. Sure, most people in the hospitality industry speak English these days, but sometimes in a Spanish- or French-speaking country, I feel compelled to attempt requests in the local tongue, which makes me think twice about how much I really need that body pillow. Soon, I won’t have to worry about it all, as hotels are increasingly allowing guests to simply text the front desk — an anonymous-feeling exchange I’d have no hesitation about doing in English (actually, make that a body pillow and bath salts, please!).
As the New York Times points out, two popular texting platforms, Zingle and Kipsu, are now working with a growing number of hotels. Zingle launched last year and is currently being used in 300 properties, including Hyatt Regency locations. A similar service, Kipsu, has been adding hotels like gangbusters and is now used in 150 of them, including Starwood properties.
Both services allow guests to text the front desk with requests before or after they arrive at the hotel. They can be programmed to send messages to check in on things (“How do you like your room?” etc.), and Zingle can be automated to answer simple questions, like “What time is check-out?” or “Where is the gym?” without need for a live human to type the same responses over and over.
Some hotels are incorporating request features right into their apps. IHG’s new app includes a “Guest Request” service, and both Hilton and Marriott offer something similar. It’s great that technology is enabling hotels to allow guests be in touch easily, and vice versa. Of course, the challenge, as always, is for hotels to avoid checking in too often and sounding like my needy ex-boyfriend.
Bankruptcy Court Approves Baha Mar Interim Financing
The U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Wednesday approved continued payments to employees, suppliers and vendors, and the operation of “certain customer loyalty and other programs,” on behalf of Baha Mar, the $3.5 billion mega-resort whose developers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday.
Late Wednesday, the bankruptcy court approved interim debtor-in-possession financing arranged by Sarkis Izmirlian, Baha Mar Ltd.’s chairman. Up to $30 million of the funding will be utilized by Baha Mar over the next 30 days; the total facility totals up to $80 million.
The $3.5 billion mega-resort’s developers filed for Chapter 11 on Monday, charging that general contractor China Construction America missed deadlines leading to delay costs and repeated postponements of the mega-resort’s originally scheduled December 2014 opening.
Baha Mar officials also canceled all existing guest reservations at the mega-resort’s anchor property, the Baha Mar Hotel & Casino, and have stopped taking new bookings.
The developers are advising travelers with reservations at the three other resort properties under construction – the Grand Hyatt and the Rosewood and SLS hotels - to contact their respective hotels directly. The mega-resort’s sole open property, the Meliá Nassau Beach, is operating normally.
U.S. tour operators are adjusting their strategies in the wake of the Chapter 11 filing. “With the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, Pleasant Holidays has suspended sales of the Baha Mar hotels until we get clarity on the opening date of the resort,” said Jack E. Richards, the firm’s president and CEO.
“The preliminary information in the bankruptcy papers indicates the resort is about 97 percent complete so we are hopeful the resort will be open sometime in 2015,” Richards added.
Baha Mar officials have also launched a website designed to update stakeholders on the progress and reasons behind the project’s Chapter 11 filing. In addition to news related to the Chapter 11 and court filings, the site includes sections for guests, Baha Mar staff and Bahamas citizens, vendors and suppliers and “community.”
The site directs project vendors and suppliers to file “proof of claims for any amounts owed prior to the commencement of the Chapter 11.” Baha Mar has engaged a claims agent to assist the vendors and suppliers in the claims process.
Said Izmirlian, “Our goal is to complete construction and successfully open Baha Mar as a world-class destination resort that will attract guests from across the globe and serve as a key economic sparkplug in the Bahamas.”
American Tourist Missing for 5 Years Discovered in Australia
Despite having been missing for five years, a vanished American tourist was found alive by police in Australia.
According to the Cairns Post, police found the man amid a burglary investigation after he was chased down by a police K-9 and arrested.
The man, identified as 60-year-old Kenneth Rodman, went missing shortly after heading to the beach in northern Australia back in 2010. Officials were only able to recover a submerged kayak, which was discovered a month after Rodman's disappearance.
"Friends, family, and police were unable to make contact with him since 2010," said Queensland state police in a statement earlier this week. "On Saturday night, officers investigating a matter stumbled across the now 60-year-old man where he allegedly confessed to police that he had been listed as a missing person."
Police have since turned Rodman over to immigration officials, and It’s expected that he'll be deported back to the U.S.
"The matter was never closed as a missing person case but inquiries led police to believe he was avoiding contact with authorities to stay in Australia, despite his visa expiring," said Inspector Glenn Horan via the Post.
A Department of Immigration and Border Protection spokesman called Rodman a "person of interest," and said that "he will be put on a flight as soon his travel documents are in order."
"If he has his American passport that could be within days."
The reason for Rodman's disappearance remains unknown and authorities weren't able to say whether he was assisted. However, police believe he spent a majority of the past five years hiding out in the tropical areas of Far North Queensland.
Prior to his disappearance, Rodman, who was 55 at the time, was last seen near Port Douglas, which is located nearly 40 miles north of the popular Australian tourist town of Cairns.
Qantas Glitch Results in Super Cheap Australia-Los Angeles Flights
If you thought you could get your hands on a roundtrip ticket from Australia to Los Angeles for a little more than $400, you'd be wise to keep dreaming.
Unfortunately for Australia's flag carrier Qantas, that dream briefly became a reality this week when a computer glitch caused some eye-popping deals to appear on websites like Hopper.com and Skyscanner.com.au, according to Mashable's Jenni Ryall.
Roundtrip tickets for scheduled flights from July to September were shown on Hopper for as low as A$577 ($444). Meanwhile, Skyscanner featured one-way fares for just A$286 ($220) for flights scheduled as far ahead as March 2016.
Skyscanner told Mashable that the low fares were the "result of a promotion or sale running from one of our partners, an online travel agency and the fare is available only on certain dates."
But Qantas confirmed that the ridiculously low fares were in fact the result of a glitch.
"There was a glitch that impacted third party USA-based online booking systems this morning, as we made some fare changes effective 1 July for travel originating in Australia. These mistake fares were incorrectly offered and have been removed from sale. The glitch was fixed at 11.30am AEST and we’re currently following up affected bookings," said a Qantas spokesperson in a statement via Mashable.
The airline did not say whether it would honor tickets that were booked for the low prices and it remains to be seen how many travelers could potentially be affected.
This isn't the first time and certainly won't be the last time that travelers are impacted by a computer glitch. Last month a glitch led the U.S. State Department to cease issuance of passports and visas. And in February 2015, a computer glitch resulted in nationwide delays for United Airlines.
Data breach discovered at Trump Hotels
A bad week just got even worse for Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump.
The Trump Hotel Collection has reportedly suffered a credit card data breach according to data from several US banks.
The breach can be dated back to February 2015, according to the Krebs on Security website, and has affected several US locations including Chicago, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York.
After declining several requests for comment Trump Hotels finally acknowledged the breach.
"Like virtually every other company these days, we have been alerted to potential suspicious credit card activity and are in the midst of a thorough investigation to determine whether it involves any of our properties," said Eric Trump, executive vice president of development and acquisitions in a statement.
"We are committed to safeguarding all guests' personal information and will continue to do so vigilantly."
It is unclear yet how many customers may have had their personal data compromised in the breach.
The type of attack has also not been disclosed but is likely to follow a similar pattern to recent breaches at other hotel groups such as Mandarin oriental and White Lodging.
In these breaches point of sale systems at F&B outlets were infected with malware allowing cyber crooks to access sensitive card data.
Donald Trump has endured a torrid few days following inflammatory comments made about Mexican immigrants.
This has sparked several companies to cut ties with the real estate developer, including NBC and Macy's.
Ferry operator Balearia gets US nod to serve Cuba
The Spanish company that operates ferries from Fort Lauderdale to the Bahamas is one step closer to adding service to Cuba.
Spain's Balearia said it received approval from the U.S. Commerce Department to operate ships between Florida and Cuba. It also expects authorization from the U.S. Treasury Department "in the coming weeks" to carry passengers between the two neighboring nations, a news release said.
Pending approval from Cuba, ferry service between the U.S. and Cuba could start as soon as fall, attorneys familiar with U.S.-Cuba business have said.
Balearia has been offering fast ferry service between Port Everglades and Freeport on Grand Bahama Island since 2011 under the brand name Bahamas Express.
For Cuba service, it plans to operate two routes to Havana: a high-speed vessel from Key West and a ferry from Port Everglades, the news release said. No further details were specified.
U.S. authorities in May licensed at least six companies to offer ferry service to Cuba, the first such approvals in five decades. Ferry service had been cut amid tensions between the two governments. It is being restored in line with restoration of diplomatic ties between the two neighbors.
The ferry companies plan to offer trips that cost less than charter flights and allow more baggage free. Many Cuban-Americans haul down hefty supplies for family homes and new private businesses.
Also licensed are Havana Ferry Partners of Fort Lauderdale, Baja Ferries of Miami, United Caribbean Lines of Greater Orlando, Airline Brokers Co. of Miami, America Cruise Ferries of Puerto Rico and International Port Corp. of Miami, among others.
The U.S. embargo on Cuba still bans Americans from leisure tourism in Cuba. But Americans can visit the island for 12 categories of "purposeful" travel including family visits, government business, professional research, performances, plus educational, religious and humanitarian activities.
Balearia is looking to serve Cuba as part of a broader international expansion.
This year, the company expects to transport more than 130,000 passengers between the U.S. and the Bahamas, up 25 percent from last year. It estimates that revenues from international operations in the Caribbean and Mediterranean regions will account for about 15 percent of its total business.
In five years, Balearia aims to derive about 50 percent of its revenue from international business, perhaps including Puerto Rico-Dominican Republic service as well, the company said.
Balearia now has 23 ships and employs more than 1,000 people worldwide.
Rental car customers and rates up during the July Fourth weekend
Robust travel expected for July 4th weekend
Road trips will be popular this week as many Americans travel from home to celebrate Independence Day.
Nearly 36 million Americans, including 1.8 million Floridians, will travel 50 miles or more from home in personal or rented vehicles during the Fourth of July holiday period running Wednesday through Sunday, according to travel group AAA.
And that's expected to keep major highways and thoroughfares jammed.
Some car rental companies across South Florida are seeing brisk business.
"We're already registering a clear increase in demand for the July Fourth holiday weekend," Evan Wexler, executive vice president operations of Sixt USA, said of business at its rental sites in the Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Miami area.
Car rental demand in Fort Lauderdale has been fueled in part by new flight connections to South America and other international destinations that operate at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Wexler said. And Miami is popular with European and South American travelers during the summer.
For reservations beginning Friday, rates at Sixt's 700 E. Sunrise Blvd. location for an economy car such as a Hyundai Accent starts at $45.24 a day for a three-day rental through Monday, according to an online search Wednesday on sixt.com. That's up from about $33.68 per day a week ago.
On Wednesday, Oakland Park resident Steven Winkler, 47, stopped at Sixt on Sunrise Boulevard to pick up a car for trips this weekend to South Beach and Key Largo with a friend visiting from Canada.
"I don't want to put the mileage on my own car, and I like the luxury cars that Sixt offers," he said, while waiting for a Mercedes Benz to be readied. "This location is more convenient for me than going to the airport."
At Enterprise Holdings — parent company of Enterprise, Alamo and National car rental brands — reservations in South Florida are up 7 percent this year for the July Fourth holiday weekend from last year, spokeswoman Laura Bryant said.
Overall, it's shaping up to be the busiest Fourth of July holiday travel period since 2007, with 41.9 million Americans (2.09 million Floridians) traveling during the five-day holiday period, AAA said.
Americans traveling also are expected to spend more money this year — $378 each, or $15.8 billion total, according to economists at the U.S. Travel Association. That's an increase of 1.7 percent from 2014.
The number of people hopping on buses, trains and cruise ships for the July Fourth holiday – roughly 3.2 million travelers — is also slightly higher than in 2014, AAA said.
City-to-city express bus company Megabus.com said it's expecting a 20 percent increase in ridership this July 4 weekend compared with a normal weekend. Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Orlando are among more than 130 cities that Megabus serves across North America.
On Wednesday, fares on megabus.com for travel from Fort Lauderdale to Orlando Friday ranged from $27 to $32 one way, while fares returning Monday ranged from $18 to $30 one way, depending on time of day.
If traveling this Fourth of July, consider these tips:
Airports/Airfares: If traveling by air for July Fourth festivities, expect increased activity at South Florida airports. Nationwide, AAA forecasts air travel to climb 1.5 percent this year to 3.2 million fliers between Wednesday and Sunday. Average airfares for the top 40 domestic flight routes are 6 percent higher this holiday period, climbing to $227, AAA said.
Gasoline: Most drivers are likely to pay the lowest gas prices for Independence Day in five years, AAA said. Across South Florida on Wednesday, the average price of regular unleaded gas ranged between $2.76 and $2.84 a gallon, according to AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report. That compares with $3.65 to $3.72 a year ago.
Hotels: Room rates are about 6 percent to 9 percent higher this year, according to AAA's Leisure Travel Index.
Tolls: Drivers will pay 1.6 percent more for tolls on Florida's Turnpike and other state-operated toll roads starting Wednesday. That will affect travel along Alligator Alley, the Sawgrass Expressway and the BeachLine Expressway between Orlando and the Space Coast, and the turnpike.
Orlando skyscraper roller-coaster plan clears FAA
The Federal Aviation Authority determined the proposed 700-foot Skyscraper roller-coaster structure, which includes a restaurant and observation deck, poses no hazard to air traffic.
The decision will become final next Monday because no one filed a petition against the federal agency's aeronautical study, said Kathleen Bergen, FAA spokeswoman.
"The study disclosed that the described structure would have no substantial adverse effect on air navigation," reads the May 27 letter, adding it would only be 8.52 nautical miles west of Orlando International Airport.
The structure will be put on aeronautical charts, said the FAA. Petitioners had until Friday to file against the project.
The letter was sent to developers of the proposed roller coaster, which itself tops out at 570 feet and would be in the proposed Skyplex Orlando entertainment complex at the intersection of International Drive and Sand Lake Road.
The 570-foot height includes the proposed restaurant, said Joshua Wallack, managing principal of the Skyplex complex. Wallack said FAA approval is one step of many for the development's progression.
The plans still require review from Orange County's Planning and Zoning Commission for a rezoning request of the parcels it would be built upon. Wallack wants Orange County to rezone the land from C-2 to planned development.
Development plans have not been without contention. In May, several I-Drive stakeholders expressed concern allowing Wallack's team to build something so tall, saying it could lead the way for bigger, taller construction in the tourism district.
Skyplex plans also call for more than 333,000 square feet of entertainment retail, more than 95,000 square feet of general retail, nearly 40,000 square feet of restaurant space and the construction of a zip line, a drop ride and a surf park.
The plans advanced last week when the county's Development Review Committee recommended the complex go forward, said an Orange County spokeswoman.
Skyplex will be reviewed by Planning and Zoning officials Aug. 20. If approved there, the complex will go before county commissioners for final approval.