'Transportation Services' Archive
French investigators say that Air France’s Flight 447 did not break apart in the air, as was thought early on in the investigation. It slammed full force into the ocean and broke apart on June 1, off Brazil’s northern coast. All 228 passengers on the flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris were killed, making the crash the deadliest in Air France’s history.
Investigators came to the conclusion the Airbus A330 aircraft was intact at the point of impact by examining the wreckage gathered from a wide area in the Atlantic Ocean. But they still don’t know what made Flight 447 crash. They need the plane’s black box (its digital flight recorder) to know for sure, and it’s at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
And now it’s too late. That’s because the black box (a misnomer as it is actually bright orange), which contains important information about the speed, altitude, and pilot communication, only emits locator signals for about 30 days after a crash. The 30-day mark was July 1. French investigators are cutting off the search for the black box on July 10 — when everyone agrees the black box’s batteries will have surely died.
Even the mini-submarine used to explore the ill-fated Titanic hasn’t turned up the black box. Weak signals were detected in June and investigators dispatched the Nautile. The mini-sub will continued to comb the ocean floor using sonar detection methods until mid-August — just in case.
Flight 447 vanished off the coast of Brazil on May 31 after flying into violent thunderstorms. A flurry of automatic messages were sent from the plane before its disappearance and show that multiple system failures occurred. Search teams have found the bodies of 51 of Flight 447’s 228 passengers, including the plane’s captain.
It seems obvious it’s time to re-think the black box; not whether it should exist but rather how it should exist. Maybe it should be a “virtual” black box — one that sends the info to a computer on the ground — so that no one has to launch a very costly deep-sea expedition to find it. People say the technology exists.
Now investigators have another perplexing question on their hands: Can they solve the crash without the black box?
British Airways boss Willie Walsh actually asked the airline’s 40,000 employees if they would do one of the following to help keep the carrier from crashing financially: work without pay for up to a month, take unpaid leave, or drop back to part-time work.
Say what? I think I would be taking unpaid leave. Not getting paid to be at work? Not going to be there! Any of those choices are horrible. Shockingly, about 800 BA workers have agreed to work during July for no pay and several thousand have said they will take pay cuts or unpaid leave. Walsh and CFO Keith Williams also will skip their paychecks in July and even BA’s board members are getting in on the act (just don’t expect them to give up free flights).
Clearly desperate times are calling for such a move. British Airways reported a whopping £401 million ($664 million) loss for the fiscal year ending March 31. Walsh warned employees that the airline’s future would be at risk if they didn’t help out — no pressure.
British Airways hopes these measures will trim a cool £10 million ($16 million) off costs. They had better hope so because there are more than a few rivals out there — not the least of which is Virgin Atlantic’s outspoken Chairman Sir Richard Branson — who might love nothing more than to see BA go down.
British bank Barclays wants to put its name on a New York City subway station. The city’s Metropolitan Transporation Authority announced this week that it is selling the rights to rename a busy downtown Brooklyn station for about $4 million. It’s the first time MTA has successfully entered such a deal (something it has been trying to do for years as a way of bringing in more revenue).
Banks put their names on all types of things — sports stadiums, music festival stages, and race cars, so why not a subway station? But while it may be good for MTA’s coffers, subway riders and some critics of the plan wonder if commercialization of public places or services is crossing the line.
Sponsorships and naming rights have traditionally been a big boon for both sides for years now. It usually is great advertising for companies and it is big source of revenue for colleges, non-profit organizations, or other people in need of some extra cash flow.
But the current economic mess we are in has created a shake up of corporate sponsorships. And some people are angry about bailed-out banks that are spending cash on naming rights and other advertisements. In response to some of that hub bub Bank of America has yanked its naming rights and sponsorship deals with the New York Yankees and USA Olympic Team this year. But other corporations and banks (namely Citigroup, AIG, and PNC Bank) continue to honor deals and make new ones.
Sponsorships are too valuable to go the way of Lehman Brothers, but both sides should weigh the benefits and the potential backlash before sealing the deal. Because who really wants to hop aboard Taco Bell Transit or fly a kite at Pepsi Park.
Even Mary Poppins wishes she had this much optimism.
Just when you thought the economy was stabilizing, last week FedEx announced it was taking an $876 million fourth quarter hit as it continues to cope with the weakening demand for its services amid the global recession. Despite the dismal forecast, FedEx head honcho Fred Smith is staying positive, stating that the level of decline appears to have tapered off.
Fewer industries have been hit harder by the recession than the transportation services industry. Although volume for the country’s top railroads has increased, the numbers are still down 20% from the same period last year. In April, the total loads carried by US trucking companies dropped almost 25% when compared to last year’s numbers — the largest decline since 1993, the year the American Trucking Associations began tracking the metric.
Why is FedEx so optimistic? Although its fourth quarter numbers were bleak, they were still higher than most industry analysts projected. Throughout the doom and gloom, FedEx has excelled at trimming costs, whether it meant cutting its work force or grounding planes and parking trucks. It has slashed the number of daily US-to-Asia flights by 30%. Smith points out that express volume outside the US has flattened out, falling only 12% in the fourth quarter after bottoming out at 13% in the third.
For the near future, FedEx is hanging its hopes on the improvements seen within the credit and stock markets, stating the positive trends will translate into a closer alignment between customers’ inventories and sales volumes.
Keep in mind FedEx is known as one of the best-managed companies in the world; more importantly, it is seen as a barometer for the wider economy, due to its leading role as a facilitator for global trade. So maybe a little positive thinking isn’t out of line here.
In six to 12 months, time will tell.
The cruise industry has had a hard time staying afloat between staggeringly high fuel prices last year and then a global economic recession. Add swine flu to the mix and that’s like sailing into a hurricane.
What happened on Royal Caribbean’s Ocean Dream was like a nightmare this week as a few members of the crew came down with the H1N1 virus (also known as swine flu). The ship, part of the Pullmantur brand, is expected to make port late Thursday in Aruba after authorities in Barbados and Grenada put out the “We’re closed” sign. (Aruba was the cruise’s final destination anyway.)
About 300 passengers were allowed to disembark on Wednesday in Venezuela, at the Isla Margarita. The other 400 or so passengers and 400 crew members will get off the ship in Aruba. So far there are three confirmed cases of swine flu among crew members but several others have symptoms.
Swine flu has already hurt Royal Caribbean, causing the cruise line to postpone launching its Pullmantur Pacific Dream, which specifically courts the Mexican market. It also has caused the company to cut fiscal 2009 earnings by about 22 cents a share.
It’s unfortunate timing for Royal Caribbean because last week, its Adventure of the Seas was turned away from St. Lucia and Antigua because of fear of H1N1 cases on board (which was unfounded), and in May crew members the Serenade of the Seas fell ill with the virus while at sea.
Royal Caribbean isn’t the only cruise line singing the swine flu blues. Holland America had five crew members come down with the virus last week.
Fuel prices are slowly creeping back up and the economy is far from recovered. Can the cruise industry weather the storm of some really bad PR, too?