WAV Travel News - Thursday Edition
Bill Vervaeke, CDME
West Palm Beach, FL 33411
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Qatar Airways CEO: U.S. airlines can’t compete with their ‘crap service’
Taking on allegations by three major U.S. airlines that Gulf carriers enjoy subsidies that violate open-skies agreements, Qatar Airways CEO Akbar al Baker said that U.S. airlines provide “crap service” and have launched their attack because they can’t compete with the high quality of service Qatar and other Gulf carriers provide.
Al Baker pointed out that no U.S. carrier offers any service to Doha, the capital city of Qatar, and that U.S. carriers offer limited service to the Gulf carriers’ main markets — the Middle East, India and other South Asian nations, and Africa. They choose to focus on secure markets such as Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean rather than taking risks in emerging markets, he said.
“There is huge growth in places where they don’t operate,” he said.
And, he said, U.S. airlines are routing what passengers they do have in emerging markets through their European partners, forcing these customers to travel through congested airports and subjecting them to far longer connecting times. He said U.S. carriers are waging a proxy fight for their European alliance partners.
While Delta, American and United want a cap on the growth of Gulf carriers in the U.S., Al Baker said that Qatar Airways is being pursued by U.S. airport executives who want to expand or add Qatar’s service.
U.S. carriers are crying foul about subsidies, he said, but ignoring that in many parts of the world, Chapter 11 bankruptcy procedures are viewed as a form of state subsidy. In response to one question, he said that post-9/11, U.S. airlines received $15 billion in subsidies —$5 billion in cash and $10 billion in loan guarantees.
When asked whether Qatar would open its books, he said that would be a decision in the short term to be made by Qatar’s owner, the state-owned Qatar Investment Authority. Long-term, he said the airline would open its books for its IPO, saying it would “happen in the not-too-distant future.”
Meanwhile, he said, Qatar’s finances are so sound that banks are “climbing over each other to finance our planes.”
Al Baker said U.S. carriers are tightly controlling capacity in their home markets to keep prices high, enjoying record profits of 10% to 15%, and cutting international capacity. They’re on attack, he said, “because they are making more profits and are greedy.”
“The U.S. government should reject the groundless claims of harm and recognize that the [open skies] agreement delivers key consumer benefits,” he said. “Claims of subsidy are a transparent attempt to block our high-quality service, with which the U.S. carriers cannot compete.”
Baha Mar: We are not cash-strapped
A Baha Mar representative denied a Bahamas Tribune report that said the unfinished Bahamas mega-resort wouldn’t open by year’s end and may be running out of cash, according to an anonymous source.
Spokeswoman Alyssa Bushey called the report “grossly inaccurate,” though she declined to provide a projected opening date.
“While Baha Mar will not speculate on the apparent self-serving agenda of such unnamed sources, such statements could not have been made by any person with direct day-to-day knowledge of Baha Mar,” Bushey said.
The report also stated that Bahamas Prime Minister Perry Christie chaired a meeting earlier this week with Baha Mar officials and builder China Construction America over the property’s opening delays, which Bushey said was true. She said Baha Mar and the contractor were working toward an agreement that will allow for “near-term completion” of the five-hotel resort.
Last week, Travel Weekly reported that Baha Mar pushed back its opening for at least another four months.
Feds: Train left rails at 102 mph
Investigators have yet to talk to engineer in derailment that killed 7.
PHILADELPHIA — The Amtrak train that crashed in Philadelphia, killing at least seven people, was hurtling at 106 mph before it ran off the rails along a sharp curve where the speed limit drops to just 50 mph, federal investigators said Wednesday.
The engineer applied the emergency brakes moments before the crash but managed to slow the train to only 102 mph by the time the locomotive’s black box stopped recording data, said Robert Sumwalt of the National Transportation Safety Board. The speed limit just before the bend is 80 mph, he said.
The engineer, whose name was not released, refused to give a statement to law enforcement officers and left a police precinct with a lawyer, police said. Sumwalt said federal accident investigators want to talk to him but will give him a day or two to recover from the shock of the accident.
“There’s no way in the world that he should have been going that fast into the curve,” Mayor Michael Nutter told CNN. “Clearly he was reckless and irresponsible in his actions. I don’t know what was going on with him, I don’t know what was going on in the cab, but there’s really no excuse that could be offered.”
More than 200 people aboard the Washington-to-New York train were injured in the wreck, which happened in a decayed industrial neighborhood not far from the Delaware River just before 9:30 p.m. Tuesday. Passengers crawled out the windows of the torn and toppled rail cars in the darkness and emerged dazed and bloody, many of them with broken bones and burns.
It was the nation’s deadliest train accident in nearly seven years.
“We are heartbroken by what has happened here,” Nutter said.
Amtrak suspended all service until further notice along the Philadelphia-to-New York stretch of the nation’s busiest rail corridor as investigators examined the wreckage and the tracks and gathered other evidence. The shutdown forced thousands to find another way to reach their destination.
The dead included an Associated Press employee, a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy and a Wells Fargo executive. At least 10 people remained hospitalized in critical condition.
Nutter said some people remained unaccounted for but cautioned that some passengers listed on the Amtrak manifest might not have boarded the train, while others might not have checked in with authorities after the wreck.
“We will not cease our efforts until we go through every vehicle,” the mayor said, adding that rescuers had expanded the search area and were using dogs to search for victims who may have been thrown from the wreckage.
Despite pressure from Congress and safety regulators, Amtrak had not installed Positive Train Control, a technology that uses GPS, wireless radio and computers to prevent trains from going over the speed limit, along the section of track where the wreck occurred. Most of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor is equipped with the system.
“Based on what we know right now, we feel that had such a system been installed in this section of track, this accident would not have occurred,” Sumwalt said.
The notoriously tight curve is not far from the site of one of the deadliest train wrecks in U.S. history: the 1943 derailment of the Congressional Limited, bound from Washington to New York. Seventy-nine people were killed.
Amtrak inspected the stretch of track on Tuesday, just hours before the accident, and found no defects, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. In addition to the data recorder, the train had a video camera that could yield clues to what happened, Sumwalt said.
As for the engineer, Sumwalt said: “This person has gone through a very traumatic event and we want to give him an opportunity to convalesce for a day or so before we interview him. But that is certainly a high priority for us, to interview the train crew.”
The crash took place about 10 minutes after the train pulled out of Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station with 238 passengers and five crew members listed as being aboard. The locomotive and all seven passenger cars hurtled off the track as the train made a left turn, Sumwalt said.
Jillian Jorgensen, 27, was seated in the second passenger car and said the train was going “fast enough for me to be worried” when it began to lurch to the right. Then the lights went out and Jorgensen was thrown from her seat.
She said she “flew across the train” and landed under some seats that had apparently broken loose from the floor.
Jorgensen, a reporter for The New York Observer who lives in Jersey City, N.J., said she wriggled free as fellow passengers screamed. She saw one man lying still, his face covered in blood, and a woman with a broken leg.
She climbed out an emergency exit window, and a firefighter helped her down a ladder.
“It was terrifying and awful, and as it was happening it just did not feel like the kind of thing you could walk away from, so I feel very lucky,” Jorgensen said in an email. “The scene in the car I was in was total disarray, and people were clearly in a great deal of pain.”
Among the dead were award-winning AP video software architect Jim Gaines, a 48-year-old father of two; Justin Zemser, a 20-year-old Naval Academy midshipman from New York City; and Abid Gilani, a senior vice president in Wells Fargo’s commercial real estate division in New York.
Several victims were rolled away on stretchers. Others wobbled as they walked away or were put on buses.
“It’s incredible that so many people walked away from that scene last night,” Nutter said. “I saw people on this street behind us walking off of that train. I don’t know how that happened, but for the grace of God.”
The area where the wreck happened is known as Frankford Junction, situated among warehouses, industrial buildings and homes.
Amtrak carries 11.6 million passengers a year along its Northeast Corridor, which runs between Washington and Boston.
The Latest on Amtrak crash: Engineer can't recall crash
The Latest on Amtrak crash: Lawyer says engineer has no recollection of railroad crash
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- 7:10 a.m. -- The attorney for the engineer who was at the controls when an Amtrak train crashed in Philadelphia says his client has no recollection of a crash that killed at least seven people.
Appearing on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Thursday, attorney Robert Goggin says Brandon Bostian remembers attempting to reduce speed as the train entered a curve before he was knocked out and sustained a concussion.
The lawyer says the engineer does not remember deploying the emergency brake. Goggin says Bostian told him the last thing he recalls is coming to, looking for his bag, retrieving his cellphone and calling 911 for help.
Investigators have determined the train was traveling at 106 mph on Tuesday night before it ran off the rails, where the speed limit was 50 mph.
The lawyer says his client's memory could likely return as the head injury subsides.
All Aboard Florida says project will happen even if bonds don’t
All Aboard Florida’s express passenger rail project will move forward regardless of whether it receives $1.75 billion in tax exempt bonds, according to court documents filed this week.
In a 50-page brief responding to a federal lawsuit trying to block the financing, All Aboard Florida said that denying the bonds will only push back its start date and increase the cost of building the Miami to Orlando rail line.
“The only consequence of plaintiffs’ requested injunction would be to require All Aboard Florida to rely on taxable bonds or other alternatives to finance the project,” a filing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia says. “That would make the project more expensive and delay its progress, but the project will go forward nonetheless.”
The document, filed in response to an Indian River County lawsuit, also says the overall project costs have increased from $2.6 billion to more than $2.9 billion, and that passenger service between Miami and West Palm Beach has been delayed until early 2017. It was previously scheduled to begin in late 2016.
Indian River and Martin counties, which oppose the project for fear it will negatively impact quality of life and the safety of residents, filed lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Transportation earlier this year trying to keep All Aboard Florida from being able to use the tax exempt bonds.
The bonds, which are marketed to private investors at no risk to taxpayers, are attractive because buyers do not have to pay federal taxes on the interest payments they receive.
But the lawsuits include claims that the bonds cannot be used for an All Aboard Florida-type project and that provisional approval awarded in December by the DOT violated environmental laws that require a final impact statement to be completed first.
All Aboard Florida maintains the environmental impact statement doesn’t apply to the DOT’s decision on the bonds and that the two counties don’t have standing to sue because the bond money won’t be used in their areas.
Indian River County has until Monday to respond to All Aboard Florida’s filing.
“I do not find this news discouraging at all,” said KC Traylor, founder of the train opposition group Florida Not All Aboard, about the project moving forward regardless of the bonds. “It proves the company is still scrambling for funding while at the same time telling us that the project has started.”
Although provisionally approved by DOT, the bonds still face a vote by the Florida Development Finance Corp., which is scheduled to meet May 28.
All Aboard Florida called the bonds a “linchpin” to completing the project in an August application, but downplayed their importance in court documents.
“All Aboard Florida’s application used the word ‘linchpin’ not because tax-exempt bonds are the only potential means of financing available, but because All Aboard Florida believed they would be the best means of financing the completion of the project,” All Aboard Florida President Michael Reininger said in an affidavit.
All Aboard Florida would eventually run 32 trains per day on the Florida East Coast Railway tracks with stops in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach between Miami and Orlando.
The Coral Gables-based company originally sought to pay for the project through a $1.6 billion Federal Railroad Administration loan, which is still under consideration. Last year, it sold $405 million in bonds with a 12 percent interest rate to begin construction on the Miami to West Palm Beach portion of the project.
“I think they are running out of options,” said Bill Ward, CEO of Mariner Sands Country Club in Stuart and chairman of Citizens Against Rail Expansion. “I just don’t see investors in the open market pouring money into this.”
Reininger disagrees.
“All Aboard Florida is committed to the project and believes it will be able to obtain alternate funding, if need be,” he said in his affidavit.
US Airways Begins Final Descent
US Airways is returning all seat trays to their upright and fully locked position as it readies for its final descent into the history books.
According to the Associated Press, American Airlines, which completed a merger with US Airways back in December 2013, plans to shut down the carrier over the course of 90-day period, with the process potentially beginning as early as July 2015.
On that timetable, the last US Airways flight ever could be completed sometime next fall.
With a shutdown of US Airways on the horizon, American must now turn its attention to initiating as smooth and seamless a transition as possible.
As US Airways flights begin to disappear, the plan is to replace them with American flights in a single reservation system. And while flights under the US Airways brand are likely to become a thing of the past by year's end, it could be more than a year until all of the US Airways aircraft are repainted to reflect American's ownership.
What's more, American executives anticipate they'll be combining labor groups and flight-operating systems through the year 2017. In anticipation of the changeover, which could be hectic as history shows, the airline plans to train as many as 9,000 airport employees and 2,000 reservations agents.
Despite American's plans to move forward, the Fort Worth, Texas-based carrier has stopped short of giving itself a deadline.
"I've worked in technology long enough to know not to give any specific dates," said American Airlines Group chief information officer Maya Leibman via the AP. "Because when you don't necessarily meet that date for a good reason, it looks like a failure to the outside world."
Puerto Vallarta Officials Meet with Cruise Execs to Ease Fears
Puerto Vallarta tourism officials met with cruise line executives after three ships canceled calls to the popular Mexican resort area this week amid fears of violence.
At the meeting, held May 12 in Miami, were Michele Paige, president of the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association (FCCA), and representatives from cruise lines including Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, Carnival Cruise Line and Disney Cruises.
Representing Puerto Vallarta were Enrique Ramos Flores, minister of tourism for the state of Jalisco; Oscar Perez, tourism director of the city of Puerto Vallarta; and Rodrigo Esponda, director of the Mexican Tourism Board for North America. Also attending were directors of security for the State of Jalisco and the City of Puerto Vallarta.
During the meeting, the parties agreed to “improve and increase communications to ensure the cruise lines are kept better informed and receive updates in real time about the destination,” according to a press release from Puerto Vallarta.
Puerto Vallarta’s marina also will enhance security “to ensure the cruise lines know the whereabouts of all passengers who go ashore, as it is done in many other international cruise destinations.”
Puerto Vallarta will work with local tour operators, taxi drivers and other tourism service providers to employ new measures that inform the ships of their passengers’ location since an average of 65 percent of cruise passengers who disembark in Puerto Vallarta explore unescorted.
This week Disney, Royal Caribbean and Celebrity ships spent a day at sea instead of calling at Puerto Vallarta as scheduled. The tourism officials said the cancellations were “due to conflicting and inaccurate reports about events that occurred on May 1 in the destination.”
On that day, a drug cartel in Jalisco shot down a military helicopter with rocket-propelled grenades, killing at least six soldiers, and other violence broke out in the area. U.S. and Canadian governments urged travelers to “exercise caution” in the area. The violence was quickly quelled and no further incidents have occurred.
“The unfortunate events that took place in Puerto Vallarta and other areas in the state of Jalisco on Friday morning May 1 were quickly contained and resolved,” the Puerto Vallarta press release said. “No harm came to any residents or visitors to Puerto Vallarta and no disturbance, restriction or limits affected tourists in the area. All tourism infrastructure and services including the cruise ship terminal, marina, airport, convention center, hotels and resorts, tours, and ground transport remained fully operational.
Puerto Vallarta continues to offer the tranquility, warm hospitality and security it is well known for, and the isolated and highly unusual incidents that took place have in no way affected or altered this.”
The Carnival Miracle visited Puerto Vallarta as scheduled on May 12. It is the only cruise line that makes scheduled weekly visits on its cruises from Long Beach, Calif.
No further cancellations by any ship are expected, the tourism officials said.
Hotel occupation has been running at an average of 80 percent occupancy in Puerto Vallarta since October 2014, according to the Mexico Ministry of Tourism. Puerto Vallarta in fact was operating at 95 percent capacity during the May 1-4 weekend.
Champagne in Coach Class as Singapore Airlines Plays Catch-Up
Want something more than the plain-vanilla coach-class airline seat?
Singapore Airlines Ltd. is selling a new premium economy version: Pay a fair bit more than standard economy and you’ll get champagne, a broad selection of wines and food, a bigger TV and seats that are as much as 1 1/2 inches wider.
Usually considered a trend setter in the industry -- in 2007 it became the first airline to put a double bed, mattress and duvet on a commercial plane -- Singapore Air now is playing catch up. New seats and other offerings are key for the airline to stay ahead of regional competitors like Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. and Qantas Airways Ltd. At the high end, Middle East carriers are offering business travelers showers and butlers, while at the lower end budget carriers are luring passengers with cut-rate fares.
“Historically, Singapore Airlines has found a way to make it work whatever they put in place,” said Mohshin Aziz, an analyst at Malayan Banking Bhd. in Kuala Lumpur, who rates the carrier’s shares a hold.
Premium economy “provides greater margins and better profitability for the airline, so it will have a positive impact on the bottom line.”
Singapore Air on Thursday reported net income in the year ended March 31 rose 2.3 percent to S$367.9 million ($279 million), lagging behind the S$418 million average profit estimate in a survey of 17 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
London, New York
The airline is retrofitting 19 Airbus Group NV A380s and 19 Boeing Co. 777-300ERs to include several dozen premium economy seats. The airline also will put the wider seats on 20 A350 planes it will receive starting in early 2016. The new service will debut Aug. 9 on a flight to Sydney.
The upgrades “will add costs” to the company in the year ending March 2016, Singapore Air said in a stock exchange statement Thursday. The investments are expected to improve future performance, the carrier said.
By early next year the premium economy service will be available on flights to Beijing, London, Tokyo, New Delhi, Frankfurt and New York, among other destinations.
The airline is already refurbishing its business class seats, offering “Sundeck” and “Lazy Z” seating for premium-class travelers.
“Singapore Air stepping in with a premium economy product is perfect timing,” said Mark D. Martin, chief executive officer of Martin Consulting, an aviation consulting firm. “This will work extremely well with one of Asia’s largest communities, the blue-collar and white-collar travelers who are willing to pay a bit more for service.”
Singapore Girl
Singapore Air has a history of standing up for economy class passengers. Famous for its “Singapore Girl” advertising campaigns, the carrier was the first to offer economy passengers free alcohol in the 1970s, going against the International Air Transport Association’s regulations at the time.
In October 2007, the airline became the first to fly the Airbus A380 superjumbos commercially.
Now the tables have turned, as competitors were quicker to upgrade their economy-class offerings. Sydney-based Qantas introduced a premium-economy offering in 2008, and Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific followed suit four years later.
“Cathay Pacific tried it and claimed it was hugely successful and very popular, and that basically has forced Singapore Airlines to react,” Malayan Banking’s Mohshin said.
A premium economy ticket on the inaugural Sydney flight starts from S$1,890.40, S$350 more than the most expensive standard economy seat, according to the airline’s website. Eventually the airline may be able to charge 50 percent to 100 percent more for premium economy than for standard economy, Mohshin said.
Introducing premium economy class could help Singapore Air cut about 1.5 percent of its capacity by January 2016, according to CAPA Centre for Aviation, an independent consultant. Much of the expected jump in next year’s earnings will come from lower fuel costs.
“In theory, economy-class load factors and yields should also improve as Singapore Airlines sells fewer seats at the lowest fare buckets,” CAPA said in a February report.
'Entourage' actor Jeremy Piven: I was ‘held hostage’ in Philly
A flight carrying “Entourage” star Jeremy Piven was temporarily stranded in Philadelphia early last Saturday, and the actor took to Twitter to chronicle the nearly 7-hour ordeal he and his fellow passengers were forced to endure.
"Pilot refuses to fly to JFK here on British airways. People are starting to panic," Piven wrote on Twitter. "Holding us for a total of 7 hours on the ground when immigration opens...holding us all hostage."
British Airways flight BA183 from London was originally intended to travel to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, but was diverted to Philadelphia due to bad weather.
Once in Philadelphia, the plane was held on the runway at Philadelphia International Airport for three hours until British Airways finally canceled the flight and began letting passengers off the plane around 2 a.m. Saturday.
Unfortunately, once off the plane all 239 passengers, including Piven, were forced to wait in a holding area for another three hours until customs opened.
British Airways apologized for the delay in a statement, noting that safety is the company’s top priority.
“Our staff looked after them, rebooking those with connections and arranging bus transfers to New York. All of our customers are now on their way to their destinations.”
TSA slammed for flawed maintenance of passenger screening equipment
The US Transportation Security Agency (TSA) has failed to manage the maintenance of its airport screening equipment to such a degree it does not know if they actually work properly, a report claims.
An audit by the Office of Inspector General concluded the safety and convenience of air travelers could be impacted.
The audit found that TSA officials have not notified airports of the requirements for proper maintenance of the screening machines.
"Without diligent oversight, including implementing adequate policies and procedures and ensuring it has complete, accurate and timely maintenance data for thousands of screening equipment units, TSA risks shortening equipment life and incurring costs to replace equipment," the OIG audit said.
"More importantly, our prior work on airport passenger and baggage screening demonstrated that these other measures may be less effective at detecting dangerous items. Consequently, the safety of airline passengers and aircraft could be jeopardised."
The report calls for proper reporting and verifying data from maintenance contractors.
The TSA has preventive and corrective maintenance contracts with firms worth $1.2 billion.
The machines are used at 450 airports nationwide handling up to 1.8 million air travelers daily.
Frontier CEO steps down amid rising customer complaints
Citing personal reasons, Frontier Airlines CEO David Siegel, has resigned with immediate effect.
Siegel's departure comes two days after privately owned Frontier was ranked worst out of the nation's 14 major airlines for complaints and on-time performance according to U.S. Department of Transportation data.
The DOT report said Frontier passengers were 34 times more likely to complain than the best ranked airline Southwest.
Denver based Frontier said chairman Bill Franke will lead strategy and finances and President Barry Biffle will take care of daily operations in the interim.
Siegel joined Frontier in 2012 and has been overseeing its transition to an 'ultra low cost' airline that has some of the lowest base fares but adds a variety of fees for other services.
Frontier has blamed much of its recent woes on the roll out of a new reservations system which has caused long wait times at call centers and frequent website outages.
Improving the customer experience and operational performance are immediate priorities, Franke said in a statement.
Royal Caribbean increasing cost of gratuities
Royal Caribbean is upping the cost of daily gratuities for all sailings from July 1.
The increase takes effect from June 1 and will rise to $12.95 per day, per guest in standard accommodations and $15.95 per day, per guest in suites.
The cruise line says passengers with an existing cruise booking can pre-pay gratuities before the June 1 deadline to lock in the current rate of $12.00 per day in standard accommodations, and $14.25 per day in a suite.
The company outlines the new pricing policy on its Loyal to You Always travel trade site which it says is designed to 'help recognize the exceptional work that Royal Caribbean's staff and crew does to deliver unforgettable vacations every day.'
Gratuities are shared out among crewmembers.
The move by Royal Caribbean follows a similar increase in gratuities charged by rival Norwegian Cruise Line which took effect in March this year.
JetBlue continues expansion with flights to Quito
Another airline aims to connect South Floridians with Ecuador and its rich Andean culture.
JetBlue Airways on Thursday announced plans to start once-daily nonstop service between Fort Lauderdale and Quito in the first quarter of 2016.
Flights will be available for purchase after government approval, JetBlue said.
The carrier's new Quito route is another step toward fulfilling its goal to increase operations at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport to 100 daily flights by 2017.
JetBlue currently offers 37 nonstop destinations, with up to 85 daily flights from Fort Lauderdale.
"We're proud to continue to grow our Fort Lauderdale focus city, a major gateway to the Caribbean and Latin America," said Dave Clark, JetBlue's vice president network planning, in announcing the new route. "Demand for travel to Ecuador has been growing strongly, especially after extensive promotional efforts by the country's officials."
Quito will be JetBlue's fifth South American destination. The city's tourism appeal includes its close proximity to beaches and fishing towns along the Pacific coast; the Andes and its volcanic corridor; the Amazon; and the Galapagos Islands.
From Fort Lauderdale, the New York-based carrier also flies to Lima, Peru, and Bogota, Cartagena and Medellin in Colombia.
The Fort Lauderdale-to-Quito route will operate with 150-seat Airbus A320 aircraft.
"The United States is our number one market and connectivity is key to our success in attracting travelers," Sandra Naranjo, Ecuador's minister of tourism, said in a statement. "We are hugely optimistic the [JetBlue] route will prove a catalyst for increasing the number of visitors from the United States to Ecuador."
JetBlue's new flight, however, will spell competition for Ecuadorian carrier Tame, which launched service from Fort Lauderdale to Quito and Guayaquil in Ecuador in the fourth quarter of 2014.
Tame began its daily flight in October between Fort Lauderdale and Quito's Mariscal Sucre International Airport with 140-passenger Airbus A320 planes with 128 seats in economy class and 12 in business.
More than 10,000 Ecuadorians live in Broward County, according to the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Legoland Florida gets its first hotel Friday
WINTER HAVEN, FL — Legoland Florida shifts from a day attraction to a resort destination with the opening of a 152-room hotel Friday.
The brightly colored hotel, designed to look like it's created from Lego bricks, is right outside the main gates of Legoland Florida.
The theme park was destined to have a hotel even before it opened in 2011, Adrian Jones, the resort's general manager, said Wednesday.
"Really, the success of Legoland Florida within the first three or four years meant we've been able to bring that forward," Jones said.
If the park were any less successful, then Merlin Entertainments Group, the company that operates the property, would not have built it for two or three more years, he said.
The hotel, with rates of about $115 to $500 a night, features more than 2,000 Lego creations, many of which will be in themed rooms, including pirate, adventure, kingdom and Lego Friends.
The Lego Friends room aligns with an ongoing expansion of the park called Heartlake City, Lego's attempt to specifically target young girls ages 6 to 10. The world includes characters Mia, Emma, Olivia, Andrea and Stephanie.
The addition features an indoor performance venue and show, shopping options and a disc-coaster called "Mia's Riding Adventure." Riders will sit atop horses as they spin and propel up and down a U-shaped coaster. It will open in June.
Legoland Florida has been updated every year since opening in 2011. The water park was added in 2012, World of Chima opened in 2013 and Duplo Village, targeting young visitors, opened last year.
The hotel's opening completes a significant shift from a day attraction to a multiday destination, Jones said.
Initial hotel bookings indicate there was demand for that change.
Already, the park has sold nearly 40 percent of the available inventory from now until the end of the year, Jones said. "So that's, that's huge."
Orin Sleeper, on vacation with his wife and two children, said he didn't know there was a new hotel on property until they arrived at the park Wednesday morning.
He expects the family will plan a future trip to the park that includes a night or two at the hotel.
"You could definitely squeeze a night, two nights out of this," said Sleeper of Long Island, N.Y. "A weekend out of this? No question."
Sleeper said the park's distance from the rest of Central Florida's biggest attractions warrants a sleepover — even more so since his children love Lego products.
"They live, eat and breathe Lego," he said.
Others were unsure of the need for a hotel.
Armandina Navarro of Jennings said she wouldn't make plans to stay in the hotel. She considers the park a one-day attraction.
However, Navarro said it's possible people will stay overnight to do the park one day and the water park the next.
Jones said he expects the hotel to eventually make the park a year-round attraction. As it stands, the park is closed certain days in the slower seasons for routine maintenance.
"With time, yes, we will be a 365-day attraction," Jones said. "But we're going to do it in steps."
United Airlines invests $573 Million in LAX
Joined by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, City Councilmember Tom LaBonge and airport officials, United Airlines executives today previewed its $573-million major-hub investment that promises to deliver a superior experience for the airline’s customers at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).
United’s LAX redevelopment project will refresh virtually all of its customer-facing space at the airport, offering more of the conveniences and premium amenities travelers value.
Outside on an aircraft apron for a boarding gate at LAX’s Terminal 7, United executives outlined the company’s plans during a ground-breaking ceremony that was also attended by Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners President Sean Burton, Los Angeles World Airports Executive Director Gina Marie Lindsey, and employees from each of the airline’s work groups.
The airline also unveiled several design renderings depicting some of the flyer-friendly changes that will greet customers between now and December 2017, when United expects to complete its renovations.
“From a state-of-the-art ticketing lobby to a sleek and spacious United Club lounge, we are enhancing the airport experience at LAX and giving our customers more of what they want when traveling – greater choice and control, consistency and comfort,” said Sandra Pineau-Boddison, senior vice president for Customers at United. “We are grateful to the City of Los Angeles for its partnership on this project, which helps ensure this key United hub remains one of the country’s premier global gateways.”
“Today’s investment by United is the latest in our more than $7 billion overhaul of LAX,” said Mayor Garcetti.
“Whether by upgrading nearly every terminal or bringing in ridesharing services to pick you up, we’re making LAX a world-class airport befitting of our global city.”
“The partnership we have with United will create the world-class experience we want for all LAX passengers,” said Burton. “As our passenger base continues to grow, we are working hard to improve the guest experience, making their journey through LAX more efficient and comfortable today and in the future.”
Upon arriving at LAX, United customers will step foot into an expansive ticketing lobby that incorporates the latest self-service tools such as self-tagging baggage kiosks. These intuitive technologies, along with an improved security screening checkpoint, will enable travelers to move quickly and efficiently from curb to gate.