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Senator blast airline companies at oversight hearing over rising fees
Senators on Wednesday harshly slammed rising airline charges for luggage and seat projects, saying carriers are looking for brand-new methods to extract more cash from travelers. Senator Richard Blumenthal, who chairs the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, blasted providers at a hearing with American Airlines, United Airlines Delta Air Lines, Spirit Airlines and Frontier executives. Airlines nowadays view their consumers as little bit more than strolling piggy banks to be shaken down for every single possible dime, Blumenthal said. Republican Senator Josh Hawley questioned why some airlines charge passengers various charges for baggage on the same flight. This is Russian roulette, Hawley said. Nobody takes pleasure in flying on your airline companies. It's a catastrophe. ... It's dreadful. It's absolutely terrible A report launched by Blumenthal last week divulged the five airline companies collectively earned $12.4 billion in profits from seat charges between 2018 and 2023. Blumenthal's panel spent a year investigating, finding providers are increasingly using algorithms to set charges. Providers are dealing with customer-specific rates to. discriminate against travelers, and to raise fares and fees for. customers the airline thinks will pay more, Blumenthal stated. Airlines say the costs are transparent and they need to offer. consumers options while they deal with increasing expenses. American Airlines Vice Chair Stephen Johnson stated carriers. need to attract the most budget-conscious consumers. Delta. executive Peter Carter said the carrier supplies choices and. worth for each customer. ... Charge practices that wear down the trust. and loyalty of our consumers are not in our best interests. United executive Andrew Nocella stated ending family seating. in 2023 and Wifi charges next year will lower revenues by hundreds. of millions of dollars. Blumenthal's committee discovered budget plan carriers Frontier and. Spirit paid $26 million to gate representatives and others between 2022. and 2023 to capture travelers not spending for bag fees or having. large products. Frontier workers can make $10 for each bag guests must. check at the gate, the report said. Frontier CEO Barry Biffle. safeguarded the practice, telling Reuters passengers who were. trying to avert paying were shoplifting. Spirit executive. Matthew Klein said the airline stopped paying workers for. capturing travelers on Sept. 30. Previously this year, airlines sued to block the U.S. Transport Department's brand-new guideline on upfront cost disclosure,. while carriers in 2018 successfully lobbied against bipartisan. legislation to mandate reasonable and proportional baggage and. modification charges.
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Air Canada to present carry-on costs for fundamental fare passengers
Air Canada stated on Wednesday it will begin charging for larger carryon bags from guests choosing for its lowestpriced fundamental fare for The United States and Canada paths beginning Jan. 3. Passengers will now have to pay for bigger items such as roller-boards or duffel bags, or big knapsacks under the brand-new terms. The carrier will charge C$ 35 for the very first bag and C$ 50. for a 2nd. United Airlines has executed a comparable policy,. requiring fundamental economy passengers to pay a minimum of $35 for. carry-on bags. All travelers can still bring a small personal product that. fits under the seat, such as a purse or laptop bag. Airlines have actually increased inspected baggage costs for North American flights, pointing out increasing upkeep and. labor agreement costs. Air Canada will also charge basic fare guests an. added fee if they want to change their seat from the one. designated at check-in. The Montreal-based flag provider included it will increase. examined luggage allowance for customers taking a trip worldwide on. its comfort economy fare, with passengers now entitled to check. two complimentary bags.
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Russia, Pakistan go over cooperation on oil and gas expedition, Ifax reports
Russia and Pakistan talked about cooperation on oil and gas offshore expedition and refining at intergovernmental conferences this week in Moscow, the Interfax news firm reported, pointing out Russia's deputy energy minister. Talks also covered the possibility of Russia providing Pakistan with petroleum and grains, according to the report. Yesterday we received a rather fascinating proposition from Pakistan in the location of offshore?? oil and gas expedition, increasing oil healing at fully grown fields, and in oil refining, the deputy minister stated. We export food and farming items, (and) anticipate the resumption of grain supplies. We favorably assess the growth in exports of Russian-made mineral fertilizers to Pakistan that has emerged this year, Marshavin stated, according to Interfax. Moscow and Islamabad have been talking about long-term crude oil supply deals during current meetings. Russia began regular oil supplies to Pakistan in 2022 as an EU embargo on Moscow's. energy materials pushed it to seek brand-new buyers for its fuel. There are steady deliveries of Russian oil to Pakistan ... Work is underway to increase such deliveries and diversify. commodity groups, Roman Marshavin said, according to the. report. Earlier Pakistan's Petroleum Minister Musadik Malik stated his. government had actually restarted talks with Russia over unrefined supply,. though he denied local media reports that Pakistan was closing a. deal to import one cargo of petroleum from Russia each month. from January.
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JetBlue projections smaller sized 2024 earnings dip as domestic travel need gets
JetBlue Airways stated on Wednesday it expects a smallerthanexpected drop in its 2024 revenue as domestic travel demand rebounded following the U.S. governmental election. Shares of the carrier increased more than 5% in premarket trading. JetBlue now expects annual profits to decline between 3.5%. and 4.5%, compared to the 4% to 5% fall projected earlier. The airline company had in October forecast a bigger-than-expected. fall in 2024 revenue in the middle of a small amounts in domestic travel need. ahead of the U.S. elections. The New York-based airline company said on Wednesday enhanced. bookings closer to departure dates over the Thanksgiving week. improved revenue during the November vacation peak. The airline company likewise said reservations for December travel went beyond. its previous expectations. JetBlue stated it now expects its 2024 profits per offered. seat mile, a proxy for prices power, to drop in between 3% and 4%,. compared to the 2.5% to 4.5% decline it estimated earlier.
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Ivory Coast cocoa exporters fear drop in products after poor weather condition
Multinational cocoa exporters running in Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa manufacturer, fear a. drop in products from farmers in the coming months after negative. weather struck crops, raising the prospect that a few of them might. default on contracts. Up until now this season, the volume of beans getting to ports is. up 34% on the very same time in 2023-24. But last season was the. worst in a years, according to the director of a European. purchaser, speaking on condition of anonymity. If you compare arrivals to 2022, a regular season, we are. 15% below that. That means the scenario isn't rosy, regardless of. appearances, stated a second European exporter. In the west and southwestern areas that produce more than. half of Ivory Coast's cocoa, joy has given way to frustration. after heavy rains harmed crops. We enjoyed at the start of October, however the rains. shown up and destroyed whatever. Today we only have a few pods to. harvest and nothing more, said Daniel Konan Kanga, a farmer who. owns six hectares in the western city of Duekoue. There's absolutely nothing more to harvest, said Simon Djedje, who. owns five hectares in the southwestern area of Soubre. In the Ivorian bush, cooperatives, purchasers and intermediaries say. the bulk of the main harvest was finished in November, and. scarcities are anticipated to last through February or March. Typically, the primary crop peaks in December, and the mid-crop. harvest starts in April. I do not see how we can meet our target volumes with two or. three months of low arrivals, stated another director at a. international exporter in the port of San Pedro. It's clear that production will be weak for 2 months. through January and February, perhaps even March. It will be. illogical..
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NATO is struggling to secure the Baltic Sea amid sabotage accusations
On November 18, just hours after two communications cables were cut in the Baltic Sea by NATO ships, 4,000 military personnel and 30 NATO vessels took part in one of the largest naval exercises of northern Europe. The drill, dubbed "Freezing Winds", lasted 12 days and was part of an effort to increase the protection of infrastructure by the transatlantic defense alliance in waters which carry 15% of all global shipping traffic. These waters are also seen as being increasingly vulnerable to attacks. Eight NATO countries as well as Russia border the Baltic Sea. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, there have been three possible incidents of sabotage against the 40 or so telecommunication cables as well as critical gas pipelines which run along its relatively flat seabed. "NATO is stepping-up patrols,... Allies are investing innovative technologies that can better secure these assets," Commander Arlo Abrahamson, a NATO spokesperson, said. The ease with which an anchor can cut through a cable combined with the treacherous conditions of the sea make it almost impossible to prevent such attacks. On the third day of the exercise, Beata Crol, German commander for the multinational task force, and her crew from the de-mining ship, the Weilheim tried to launch a underwater drone in order to inspect the seabed while a winter storm was raging. The drone froze after a delay of 30 minutes in its launch. It was unable to operate. She shrugged and waited as the equipment warmed up. NATO's six-vessel fleet of minehunting vessels, which has spent years detonating World War Two era mines in the Baltic Seabed, is now being repurposed to monitor suspicious underwater activities. Its hull-mounted radar scans the seabed and drones can take photos and videos under the water. Divers are also on hand. Its powers are still restricted. Krol explained that "we are a defensive alliance, and by training and exercising in areas where underwater infrastructure is crucial, we demonstrate presence and prevent, rather than actively engage." Causes of CABLE DAMAGE DIFFICULT TO PINPOINT Security sources claim that the Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 which left the Russian Port of Ust-Luga in November 15 was responsible for cutting the two underwater cables between Nov.17 and 18. It did this by dragging its mooring on the seabed. Sweden had urged it to return for an investigation. As of Monday morning, the vessel was still in Danish economic waters being observed by NATO ships. It was accused of sabotage by some politicians, but there is no evidence to support this claim. China said that it was ready to help in the investigation. Meanwhile, its ally Russia denied any involvement in the Baltic infrastructure incident. This case is similar to the incident that occurred last year, when a Chinese ship NewNew Polar Bear destroyed two cables connecting Estonia with Finland and Sweden, as well as a gas pipeline between Estonia and Finland. China also promised to help, but it did not stop the ship. A year later, neither Finnish nor Estonian investigators had reached any conclusions. Cable damage is nothing new. According to the UK's International Cable Protection Committee, 150 cables are damaged worldwide each year. TeleGeography, a U.S. based research firm in telecom, said that the Baltic's shallow waters are especially vulnerable to damage due to the high ship traffic. If it is proven that any of the recent events were sabotage, then we will see a new type of warfare. Paul Brodsky is a senior researcher with TeleGeography. He said, "You need to go back to World War One and the Spanish-American War for a state-sponsored attack on a submarine cable." In order to counter this threat, NATO opened in May its Maritime Centre for Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure in London. The centre aims to map and identify all critical infrastructure within NATO-controlled waters. In Rostock on the German Baltic coast, an international naval headquarters was opened in October. Its purpose is to protect NATO member interests at sea. Onboard the Weilheim Commander Pal Bratbak of CUI Branch, the CUI's Branch head, stressed the increasing power of technology. The NATO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation in Italy has launched software that will combine data and images from private and military sources, including hydrophones and radars. Satellites and vessels' Automatic Identification System, (AIS), and fibres are also included. Bratbak explained that if we get a clear picture of the situation, we can send in units to confirm what it tells us. According to Lieutenant-General Hans-Werner Wiermann of Germany, who headed a cell for the coordination of undersea infrastructure at NATO Headquarters from March until now, no cable or pipeline can be protected all the time. He said that the best response to hybrid attacks was resilience. Companies were already installing cables with "redundancies", or spare routes, that would allow critical infrastructure to continue working even if a cable is cut. Krol’s second drone, the Weilheim’s, is able to finally brave the storm and continue the underwater inspection drill.
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Cuba's electrical grid collapses after power plant failure, millions without light
Cuba's national electrical system collapsed early on Wednesday early morning after the country's. largest power plant stopped working, the government stated, the most recent of. a number of such failures as the island's grid falls under disarray. amid fuel lacks, natural catastrophe and economic crisis. The nation's energy and mines ministry said the Antonio. Guiteras power plant in Matanzas, the island's top electrical energy. producer, had shut down at around 2 a.m., prompting the grid. collapse. Cuba's oil-fired power plants, already outdated and. having a hard time to keep the lights on, reached a full crisis this. year as oil imports from Venezuela, Russia and Mexico decreased,. adding to numerous across the country blackouts over 2 months. The system failure on Wednesday morning had actually left the capital. Havana nearly entirely in the dark, according to a Reuters. witness. Lights before dawn might be seen only in a handful. of big hotels and federal government structures throughout the city's. horizon. Reports of blackouts somewhere else in Cuba on social networks. suggested the entire island of around 10 million individuals was. without power, though the government had yet to verify the. level of the interruption. The energy and mines ministry said it was working to. reconnect the electrical system. Cuba's grid collapsed several times in October as fuel. supplies dwindled and Cyclone Oscar struck the far-eastern end. of the island, however in November with the passage of. Typhoon Rafael.
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Key international natural gas prices set to keep increasing into 2025: Maguire
Gas prices in Asia, Europe and North America have climbed by around 30% to 50% so far in 2024, and look set to keep increasing over the coming months as forecasts for cold weather trigger greater heating up need in key consumer centers. Active restocking of rapidly-declining gas inventories in Europe and Asia need to also stimulate strong gas demand, even if temperature levels turn moderate once again in those locations. That ought to ensure gas market sentiment remains broadly bullish till the upcoming winter is over, which prices may have little scope to pull back till well into 2025. High and rising gas costs in turn look set to raise power costs throughout essential international markets, jeopardising fragile financial growth in China, Europe and in other places and raising fresh concerns about inflation. Rapidly climbing gas-fired generation costs likewise raise the likelihood of greater generation by coal-fired power plants, which are currently less expensive to run than gas-fired plants but generate around 55% more emissions per unit of power output. COLD WINTER SEASON COMING Greater gas-fired generation for heating across North America, Europe and North Asia is the main near-term driver of worldwide gas rates. Those areas represent over two-thirds of international gas use, and are all set to get in the peak period for heating need over the coming months. What's more, for the first time in years, average temperatures across the essential gas markets of China, Japan and mainland Europe are all set to slip listed below long-term averages this month. This will snap the recent run of reasonably moderate winter weather throughout those areas seen over the previous couple of years, and will lead to an integrated increase in gas-fired heating need that ought to even more raise gas market prices and sentiment. In Seoul, South Korea, average temperature levels throughout December are set to typical around unfavorable 2.17 degrees Celsius (28. degrees Fahrenheit), compared to a long-lasting average of negative. 0.7 degrees Celsius, according to LSEG. Shanghai, Tokyo and Hong Kong are also set to tape-record average. temperature levels of well below-normal this month. The resulting rise in heating demand across those higher. metropolitan areas - home to over 100 million individuals - will. trigger faster burn rates of natural gas and coal, and an. sped up draw on power fuel stockpiles over the rest of 2024. In Europe, a drop in temperatures to below-normal levels is. also forecast this month, especially in the gas-heavy power. markets of Italy and Germany, according to LSEG. STOCKS DRAW The pick-up in gas use across Europe has actually currently triggered a. rapid drawdown in the area's gas stockpiles. Between October 1 and the end of November, cumulative gas. inventories held in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France. decreased by 11%, according to LSEG. That compares to fairly flat gas inventories over that. duration in 2023, a 3.5% increase in gas stocks in 2022, and an. typical draw of only 2% over that period given that 2017. The outright level of cumulative gas stocks in those. nations as of December 1 is also the most affordable for that date. because 2021, which was before Russia's intrusion of Ukraine resulted in. cuts in pipelined gas flows to the area. As a result, power companies will be under pressure to try to. reconstruct those inventories over the coming months even as they. increase gas burn-rates due to rising heating demand. In the United States, existing gas stocks are. the highest in over 5 years, according to the U.S. Energy. Information Administration. However, they are likewise on the cusp of the conventional. draw-down period when stockpiles decline by approximately 9%. over the final five weeks of the year. This indicates that even the obviously plentiful gas stocks held. in the U.S. will tighten considerably heading into 2025, and. will further underpin gas market belief. FUEL SWITCHING Lots of power systems throughout Asia have the leeway to burn more. coal rather of gas to meet the higher heating need, and will. decide to do so if the expense of gas-fired generation rises too far. above coal generation. In Japan, the expense of spot melted gas (LNG) is. currently around 44% above the average coal-to-gas switching. cost, and indicates that coal-fired power manufacturers will be. incentivized to raise output faster than gas-fired producers. Power companies in China, South Korea and other parts of Asia. that also have the flexibility to utilize either gas or coal for. generation will likewise likely decide to raise coal output much faster. That could trigger a downturn in the pace of gas use in. Asia, and set the phase for possible rate pull-backs in Asian. markets. However, increasing gas need by power firms in Europe will. likely more than balanced out any demand drops in Asia, and ensure. that worldwide gas rates remain fairly well supported through. the coming winter season. That indicates that despite the fact that lots of crucial natural gas markets. have already climbed up by 50% already this year, more cost. boosts are most likely coming. The viewpoints expressed here are those of the author, a market. analyst .
Auckland Airport share trading stopped as Auckland Council transfers to offer remaining stake
Trading in the shares of Auckland International Airport was halted on Wednesday after the airport operator stated it was notified that Auckland Council had started a procedure to offer its remaining 9.71% stake in the business.
Auckland Future Fund Trustee Limited has welcomed a. reasonably large group of brokers to submit offers for a parcel. of 163,231,446 shares in Auckland Airport, the company said in. a filing to the New Zealand stock exchange.
Based on Auckland Airport's closing rate of NZ$ 8.08 on. Tuesday, the stake is worth about NZ$ 1.32 billion ($ 776.03. million).
In 2015, Auckland Council decreased its stake in the airport. operator by about 7% after selling shares worth NZ$ 835.9. million.
We believe that the stake sale might be seen as a clearing. occasion for investors to focus more on the operating and. basic outlook for Auckland Airport, Citi analysts said.
(source: Reuters)