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Amtrak, the US passenger rail company, sets a record for ridership and cuts losses
Amtrak, the U.S. passenger rail company, said Tuesday that it had set records for revenue and ridership in a single year. It also cut its losses by 15 percent to $598 millions and is aiming for profitability by 2028. Amtrak is a major effort in rehabilitating the infrastructure of the Northeast corridor between Boston, Massachusetts and Washington. It is expanding service throughout the United States by purchasing new Acela trains with higher speeds and replacing regional trains from next year. Amtrak reported that in the twelve months ending September 30, it had 34,5 million trips made by customers, an increase of 5.1%. Operating revenue was 9.1% higher, at $3.9 billion. In March, the White House forced Amtrak's CEO Stephen Gardner to resign after President Donald Trump requested changes. CAPACITY - MORE CAPACITY Amtrak hasn't named a new chief executive officer, but Amtrak president Roger Harris runs the operations. Harris stated in an interview that "the critical thing for us right now is to get capacity." He added that the new Acela train will be 27% larger and new regional trains will be coming next year. "I think better product and more capacity." Harris stated that more people are considering Amtrak because of the congestion on highways, and problems with air travel, such as volume or technical issues. In October, the White House halted reimbursements to the $17.2 billion Hudson River Tunnel project. The project received over $11 billion of federal grants. It is considered crucial for improving service between New York City and New Jersey. Amtrak received about $2.4 billion per year in government funding over the past few years. This is on top of the $22 billion that was approved for major projects in 2021, spread out over five years. Harris stated that Amtrak was prepared to "sustain the projects" during the recent government shutdown. He did not anticipate any delays. Harris did not know if Amtrak was going to name a new chief executive officer. Harris stated that Amtrak has been letting him run the company since the last eight-month period. Sean Duffy, the U.S. Transportation secretary, praised railroad growth. USDOT announced in September that it had taken back control of Washington Union Station, which is one of the nation's largest rail hubs. Duffy stated that "Faster trains and more affordable service are opening a new era in American rail." (Reporting and Editing by Bill Berkrot.)
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Pickets by Allegiant Pilots at US Airports demand pay increase and better schedules
Allegiant Air Pilots Picketed in 22 U.S. Airports on Tuesday. They demanded higher pay and improved scheduling, as labor contract negotiations with the carrier had stalled following several years of negotiation. Teamsters, the union that represents Allegiant's pilots, says they are amongst the most underpaid and overworked in the industry. They want compensation to match industry standards and better scheduling, as pilots become frustrated and leave for more lucrative competitors. We're losing highly experienced and skilled pilots. "We're losing them because they're not being fairly compensated," said a pilot, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Why would stay here now?" Allegiant's pilots currently work under a contract ratified in 2016, which became amendable in 2020. Gregory Unterseher of the Teamsters Airline Division told us that first officers earn $50,000 per year at Allegiant in their first years, while regional pilots start at $100,000. ASSERT ALLEGIANTS' PAYMENT OFFER Allegiant, based in Las Vegas, said that it had offered an immediate average 50% increase in hourly wage. This will grow to 70% by the end of a 5-year contract. The carrier also said that it had offered an immediate 50% increase to its direct contribution for pilots' retirement and improved long-term disabilities benefits. The pilot stated that while the pay rates offered may seem good, the carrier has not agreed to the scheduling. Allegiant is able to move off days as they please, and reserve pilots in larger bases are required almost every day. Teamsters Local 218 reported that the carrier wants to declare 20% of its pilots surplus, and then force the remaining 20% to fly the maximum schedule. Allegiant denies this claim. We'll strike in an instant if we can. Unterseher stated that the airline would be shut down without hesitation. Allegiant's pilots approved a strike in November 2024 by a 97% vote. In April, the union requested that National Mediation Board remove them from mediation. Allegiant stated that the union had not met the legal requirements to call a strike. The company faces staffing problems as contract negotiations drag out. Pilots who are frustrated may seek better-paying positions with competitors, at a time that the carrier is trying to expand its market share in the wake of Spirit Airlines' second bankruptcy. Allegiant announced on Tuesday that it will be adding 30 new nonstop flights and four new markets. Allegiant is offering a retention bonus to retain pilots. The company says that since June 2023, the retention bonus has increased pay by 82% for first-year officers, and 35% for all other pilots. This will be paid in cash after a new contract has been ratified. A spokesperson stated that the retention bonus for senior captains has exceeded $200,000, and is still growing. The pilot stated, "You have to give people fair contracts if you're going to keep them." "The retention bonus really isn't a factor for me." (Reporting and editing by Nick Zieminski, Frances Kerry and Doyinsola Oladipo)
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Pickets by Allegiant Pilots at US Airports demand better pay and schedules
Allegiant Air Pilots Picketed in 22 U.S. Airports on Tuesday. They demanded higher pay and improved scheduling, as labor contract negotiations with the carrier had stalled following several years of negotiation. Teamsters, who represent nearly 1,400 Allegiant Pilots, claim that they are amongst the most underpaid and overworked in the industry. They want compensation to industry standards and better scheduling, as pilots become frustrated and leave Allegiant for a higher-paying competitor. We're losing our highly experienced and skilled pilots. "We're losing them because they're not being fairly compensated," said a pilot under condition of anonymity. Why would you still be here? Allegiant's pilots currently work under a contract ratified in 2016, which became amendable by 2021. Allegiant's first officers earn around $50,000 per year, while regional pilots start at $100,000. Allegiant, based in Las Vegas, said that it had offered an immediate average 50% increase in hourly wage. This will grow to 70% by the end of a 5-year contract. The carrier also said that it had offered an immediate 50% increase to its direct contribution for pilots' retirement and improved long-term disabilities benefits. The pilot stated that while the pay rates offered may seem good, the carrier has not agreed to the scheduling. Allegiant is able to move off days as they please, and reserve pilots in larger bases are required almost every day. Teamsters Local 218 reported that the carrier wants to declare 20% of its pilots surplus, and then force the remaining pilots to fly the maximum schedule. Allegiant denies this claim. We'll strike in an instant if we can. Gregory Unterseher is the director of Teamsters Airline Division. Allegiant's pilots approved a strike in November 2024 by a 97% vote. In April, the union requested that National Mediation Board remove them from mediation. Allegiant stated that the union had not met the legal requirements to call a strike. While contract negotiations drag on, the company faces staffing problems as pilots who are frustrated seek better paying jobs at competitors. This is happening at a moment when Spirit Airline wants to expand its market share in the wake of the second bankruptcy. (Reporting from Doyinsola Oladipo in New York, editing by Nick Zieminski).
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Police raid Portugal's TAP Airlines in a corruption probe
The prosecutor general’s office reported that Portuguese police conducted a search of the headquarters of TAP, Portugal's flag carrier, and other companies in the country on Tuesday. This was part of a continuing investigation into suspected fraud in a complicated aircraft leasing deal from 2015. The searches are a result of an investigation conducted in 2023 into TAP's lease deal for 53 Airbus planes, which was struck shortly after the company had been privatised. It then came under control of a joint-venture between American-Brazilian aviation businessman David Neeleman, and Portuguese Barraqueiro Group owned by Humberto Porsa. Both Neeleman & Pedrosa deny any wrongdoing. TAP is now fully owned by the state and has entered a new process of privatisation. In a press release, the Infrastructure Ministry stated that legal proceedings are to be considered "normal". The Infrastructure Ministry said in a statement that the legal proceedings should be viewed "as normal". The prosecutor's said that it suspects the leasing contract to be part of a scheme illegal in which Airbus assisted in financing the acquisition of TAP by Airbus in 2015, leading to losses for the airline. In a press release, it stated that "the facts in question likely constitute crimes of harmful administration in the private sector and passive corruption, as well as aggravated tax fraud and Social Security fraud." Airbus' spokesperson said that the company "doesn't comment on any situations involving their client companies". Airbus's historic business dealings were the subject of multiple investigations. This led to a $4 billion settlement for corruption with French, British, and U.S. Authorities in 2020 and a $14 million French settlement 2022. Airbus has made sweeping changes, including a new compliance system. TAP's spokesperson stated that the airline does not comment on court proceedings, and cooperates fully with all authorities. Prosecutors said that 25 locations were being searched, including law firms, auditing firms, and companies. Barraqueiro Group confirmed that it had also been searched but was confident of its innocence in relation to the privatisation of TAP. It stated that it was cooperating with the investigation and did not have any cause for concern. (Reporting and additional reporting by Inti landauro, editing by Andrei Khalip; Conor Humphries, Jan Harvey and Andrei Khalip)
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NTSB: Loose wiring led to power failure before the March 2024 Baltimore Ship Crash, NTSB states
The National Transportation Safety Board announced on Tuesday that loose wires caused a power outage on the cargo vessel Dali, which crashed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 20, 2024. Six people were killed and the bridge was destroyed. The NTSB will hold an hearing in Washington, DC to determine the probable causes of the accident that resulted in the death of six construction workers. The staff of the board said that they recommend operators perform periodic inspections on high voltage switchboards, and propose changes to allow ships more quickly recover after a loss of power. The NTSB said that the Dali had lost power on several occasions before it crashed into the Key Bridge. This included a blackout while in port maintenance and just before the crash. The NTSB is considering new recommendations for preventing catastrophic collisions when power outages occur at sea. ASSESSING BRIDGED SAFETY In March, the board requested urgent safety assessments for 68 bridges across 19 states, including the Golden Gate Bridge (also known as the Chesapeake Bay Bridge), Brooklyn Bridge, and George Washington Bridge. The review is focused on bridges that were built before 1991, and are frequented primarily by ocean-going vessels. These bridges have not been subjected to vulnerability assessments. The May crash of a Mexican Navy Training Ship into the Brooklyn Bridge raised concerns over bridges being damaged by vessels. The NTSB reported last year that about four minutes prior to the crash, the Dali's power was cut off when the electrical breakers tripped. This caused a power outage for all shipboard equipment and lighting when the Dali was only 0.6 miles (1 km) away from the bridge. Initially, it was estimated that a replacement bridge would cost $1.7 to $1.9 billion. It should be completed by the end of 2028. State officials announced on Monday that they expect the bridge to cost between $4.3 billion and $5.2 billion, with traffic opening only in late 2030. The increased cost was attributed to a new pier-protection system and a longer, more complex design. The FBI has launched a criminal investigation into the collapse. (Reporting and editing by Lincoln Feast, Frances Kerry and David Shepardson)
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Police raid Portugal's TAP Airlines in a corruption probe
The prosecutor general’s office reported that Portuguese police conducted a search of the headquarters of TAP, Portugal's flag carrier, and other companies in the country on Tuesday. This was part of a continuing investigation into suspected fraud in a complicated aircraft leasing deal from 2015. The searches are a result of an investigation conducted in 2023 into TAP's lease deal for 53 Airbus planes, which was struck shortly after the company had been privatised. It then came under control of a joint-venture between American-Brazilian aviation businessman David Neeleman, and Portuguese Barraqueiro Group owned by Humberto Porsa. Both Neeleman & Pedrosa deny any wrongdoing. TAP is now fully owned by the state and has entered a new process of privatisation. The prosecutor's said that it suspects the leasing contract to be part of a scheme illegal in which Airbus assisted in financing the acquisition of TAP by Airbus in 2015, leading to losses for the airline. In a press release, it stated that "the facts in question likely constitute crimes of harmful administration in the private sector and passive corruption, as well as aggravated tax fraud and Social Security fraud." Airbus' spokesperson said that the company "doesn't comment on any situations involving their client companies." Airbus's historic business dealings were the subject of multiple investigations. This led to a $4 billion settlement for corruption with French, British, and U.S. Authorities in 2020 and a $14 million French settlement in 2030. Airbus has made sweeping changes, including a new compliance system. TAP's spokesperson stated that the airline "doesn't comment on legal proceedings, and fully cooperates" with all authorities. Prosecutors said that 25 locations were being searched, including law firms, auditing firms and companies. Barraqueiro Group confirmed that it had also been searched but was confident of its innocence in relation to the privatisation of TAP. It stated that it was "cooperating" and did not have any reason to be concerned about the ongoing investigations. (Reporting and additional reporting by Inti landauro, editing by Andrei Khalip & Conor Humphrey; Reporting by Sergio Goncalves)
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Ryanair's late flight results in some landing rights being lost at Dutch airport
Airport Coordination Netherlands (the body that assigns slots to airports) announced on Tuesday that Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair had lost two landing slots at Eindhoven Airport because its flights were repeatedly late. Ryanair announced in a press release that it had appealed ACNL’s decision before the European Commission and Dutch courts. It called it "unprecedented and disproportionate". ACNL determined that Ryanair consistently delayed flights on Monday evenings from Sofia, Bulgaria and Thursday evenings from Pisa in Italy. The ACNL said that the flights were, on average, more than an hour behind schedule. ACNL then removed the airline's two slots from the schedule for the summer of next year, a punishment it only rarely imposes. Ryanair stated that ACNL penalizes airlines for delays in air traffic control, even if they are only 15 minutes late. The decision was first reported by the Dutch newspaper Eindhovens Dagblad. (Reporting and editing by Jamie Freed; Joe Bavier, Jan Harvey, and Jamie Freed)
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Recent major tech failures
Cloudfare, a web-infrastructure company, was affected by a global outage Tuesday. This left major internet platforms unreachable globally. The second major Internet disruption in the last year has been the failure of Amazon's cloud service unit AWS. In chronological order, here are the most recent tech outages. BRITISH AERIALWAYS British Airways, owned by IAG, was hit in May 2017 by a major failure of its computer system that left 75,000 passengers stranded over a long weekend. This led to a disastrous public relations situation and promises from the airline that they would improve in the future. Media reports claim that a maintenance worker accidentally turned off the power. A Google outage that occurred on December 14, 2020, affected some of Google's most popular products including YouTube Gmail and Google Drive for one hour. According to the outage monitoring site DownDetector more than 12,000 YouTube customers were affected around the world including in the United States of America, Britain, and India. FASTLY On June 20, 2021, thousands government, news, and social media sites across the world were affected by an hour-long widespread outage that was linked to U.S. cloud company Fastly. This issue affected many high-traffic sites, including Reddit.com, Amazon.com, CNN, PayPal.com, Spotify, Al Jazeera Media Network, and The New York Times. Outages ranged from a few moments to an hour. AKAMAI Websites for dozens of Australian financial institutions and US airlines were temporarily down on 17 June 2021 due to server-related glitches. The firm said that the bug was the cause of the problem. META Meta's social media platforms Facebook WhatsApp and Instagram were down for six hours in October 2021. 10.6 Million users reported problems around the world. The company claimed that the outage was due to a configuration error. X Corp's social media platform Twitter was affected by a major outage in December 2022. For several hours, users were unable to use the platform or access its features. At the height of the disruption, Downdetector recorded more than 10,000 users affected from the United States. About 2,500 users were from Japan and approximately 2,500 people from the UK. CROWDSTRIKE On July 19, 2024, a software update from global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused global computer system outages lasting several hours for Microsoft customers. Globally, services from healthcare to shipping and finance to airlines were affected. After the outage, businesses were left with a backlog of cancelled and delayed flights, medical appointments, and missed orders. Amazon's Cloud Services unit, which hosts computer applications and processes for businesses around the globe, experienced an outage in October 2025. This caused disruptions across industries and took down popular apps such as Reddit and Snapchat. The disruption forced workers in London and Tokyo to go offline, stopping them from performing normal daily tasks such as paying their hairdressers or changing airline tickets. AWS's Northern Virginia cluster (also known as US-EAST-1) was responsible for a major Internet meltdown at least three times in the last five years. CLOUDFARE On November 18, 2025, the web-infrastructure company, whose network handled about a fifth web traffic, suffered an outage that prevented thousands of users from accessing popular internet platforms including X, ChatGPT, and others. Cloudfare stated in an update at 1148 GMT that it was "experiencing a degradation of internal service". Cloudfare said in a update at 1442 GMT that it had fixed the issue.
Lufthansa wants to change its reputation as Europe's worst airline
Last year, the CEO of Lufthansa described its flagship airline as a "problem kid".
This label has been difficult to remove, even with a turnaround plan.
Carsten Spohr, who is trying to make things better by cutting costs, centralising operations, and simplifying a complex fleet has fallen further behind Air France KLM and British Airways' owner IAG.
Lufthansa's stock is up a little, but IAG and Air France KLM are up 92% and 15% respectively. The group's operating margin shrank to just 4.4% in 2018, down from 7.6% a year earlier, and analysts predict 4.8% by 2025.
Spohr stated last month that "we definitely lagged some of our competitors in terms of financial performance and, also, we lagged behind the operational performance until this summer."
Lufthansa's changes, including a 20% reduction in administrative jobs and the retirement of old planes, will help it achieve an operating margin of 8% to 10% between 2028 to 2030.
Ingo Speich is the head of corporate governance for Lufthansa's investor Deka Investment. He added: "It has to prove that it can reach its goals."
'LUFTHANSA FOCUSES ON THE RIGHT THINGS.'
Analysts and investors said that Lufthansa is trying to make the right moves.
Alex Irving, Bernstein analyst, said: "Lufthansa is focusing on the right things, namely driving productivity up and cutting costs."
Boeing's long-delayed delivery of the new format with its plusher Allegris cabin will allow it to maximize sales and revenue from premium seats and products.
The market also welcomed the decision to reduce 4,000 administrative posts over the next five-year period.
Lufthansa could be forced to abandon its plans as it deals with more pressing and urgent issues, such as supply chain problems on the long-awaited Boeing planes or difficult union negotiations.
Lufthansa issued two profit warnings in the past year, as strikes pushed costs spiraling out of control and hampered plans to increase its margin. The company has not reached a deal with the pilots' union, and strike talks are still possible.
Jarrod Castle, UBS analyst, said: "We believe (the) outlook is going to dominate the results due to the possibility of a pilot's strike."
GOOD LONG-TERM STRATAGE; WEAKNESSES IN EXECUTION
Lufthansa wants to simplify its complicated structure that includes six hubs, nine airline brands ranging between ITA Airways and Eurowings.
Hendrik Schmidt is a corporate governance specialist at German asset manager DWS. He said: "This variety of brands are confusing for customers, and it appears to be hard for management control." The global economy is also facing a number of challenges, including a costly U.S. shutdown that has affected the airline industry and softer transatlantic travel.
Speich, Deka's Speich, is unsure about the future. "Lufthansa has contradictory business practices." Speich stated that the long-term strategic plan is correct, but added: "On one hand, execution has been weak in the past".
(source: Reuters)