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| Hawaii stocks, Wall St. mixed on interest rates Hawaii stocks were mixed Wednesday as was Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial dropped on news from the Federal Reserve, meanwhile the S&P 500 and Nasdaq saw gains. (ALEX) (HE) (BOH) (CPF) (MLP) feeds.bizjournals.com |
Airlines keep their heads in the clouds Baltimore has become a battleground city in the low-fare airlines’ quest for market supremacy at a time when the industry is struggling to survive one of the worst recessions in decades. In the past six months, JetBlue and Cape Air have both launched new service from Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, while AirTran Airways seeks to gain ground on Southwest Airlines Co., BWI’s largest carrier. Those moves have created an upside for Greater Baltimore business travelers, who will have more routes to choose from along with wireless Internet access and competition among the airlines to offer the lowest fares. Luring passengers from other airlines and enticing new ones to take to the skies is becoming increasingly important. That’s because air travel is expected to drop by nearly 10 percent nationally and has already fallen by more than 5 percent at BWI so far this year, bringing airlines’ profits down with them. All but two airlines reported positive earnings for the first three months of the year. Low-fare carriers like Southwest and AirTran Airways have carved out a niche in underserved markets like Baltimore, where they have overtaken the legacy carriers like Delta and United Airlines to become the dominant players. Southwest is BWI’s largest airline with nearly 52 percent of the market, followed by AirTran at about 14 percent. But both airlines have been hammered by the economy, which has prompted leisure travelers to stay closer to home for their vacations and companies to ratchet back their travel budgets. More cities, fewer flights Now the airlines are looking to break into new markets, where they can potentially command higher fares and tap into larger bases of customers. Southwest recently announced plans to service Boston, LaGuardia and Milwaukee. Those moves put it in direct competition with JetBlue and AirTran in Boston and with AirTran in Milwaukee. “Here is the airline stepping into some really significantly sized markets, that being Boston and LaGuardia,” said David Beckerman, vice president of analytical services for aviation data firm OAG. “They need to find high-unit revenues, and some of those markets may offer that.” But at the same time, Southwest has scaled back on the number of flightscoming through BWI, cutting its capacity by about 4 percent in July compared with a year earlier, according to OAG data. That’s in line with an overall drop in business this year at BWI, which has seen a 4.6 percent drop in passengers through its gates. At the same time, AirTran boosted its capacity — a standard measurement for airline volume — by about 13 percent. feeds.bizjournals.com |
Credit crunch delays St. Regis project construction Construction on a St. Regis Hotel & Residences at a Turtle Creek site in Dallas has been delayed because of the credit crunch and the recession, but plans for the $200 million project have not been scratched altogether. feeds.bizjournals.com |
Fluhr to speak at Young Professionals' luncheon Jeff Fluhr will give the Young Professional of Wichita an update on the downtown master plan next week. feeds.bizjournals.com |
Striking Amerijet employees near deal Pilots and flight engineers striking against cargo carrier Amerijet International may soon be back to work. feeds.bizjournals.com |