Travel Industry Archive

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide announced today it would move its luxury brands to Soho and create a “design, branding and retail think tank.” That means teams from W Hotels, Le Méridien, St. Regis and The Luxury Collection will join forces with Starwood’s Bliss and Remède Spa to come up with ways to wrench money from consumers during a recession. It’s not a...

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The U.S. Postal Service, partnering with the U.S. Department of State, is holding its “Passport Day in the USA” across the country Saturday. The event will be a kind of clinic on obtaining a passport and passport card. Part of the reason for these events is the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, a U.S. Homeland Security endeavor that requires a passport or passport card for...

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Media Day at US Airways is one of my favorite events. Why? Because this is one of the few airlines that actually considers bloggers to be media, and it’s always an interesting session. But alas, I was given the opportunity to meet Southwest founder Herb Kelleher on the very same day, and that was impossible to turn down. So what did I miss at Media Day? Holly at PlaneBuzz gives a...

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Atlanta’s lawsuit against online travel companies continues — Atlanta’s lawsuit against online travel companies, alleging they are withholding millions of dollars of hotel taxes, was upheld in Georgia Supreme Court. Now a Fulton County judge will decide the case, whether online travel companies are liable for the lost hotel and occupancy tax. The complaint says that the...

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Republic has been a big fan of doling out money to help carriers get on their feet. They’ve done it for US Airways, Midwest, and Frontier, and they’ve now done it for Mokulele in Hawai’i as well. Now they’re taking it a step further, and apparently they want to get into the business of running an airline. Originally, Republic provided the aircraft for Mokulele to run...

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You can’t accuse the International Air Transportation Association of trying to sugar-coat the situation, not after it slapped a title of “Grim Prospects” on its most-recent projections for the global airline industry. You probably saw the headlines from the report, which projects worldwide losses of $4.7 billion for airlines in 2009. That’s worse than the $2.5 billion...

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As everyone else was reading about how MGM Mirage might declare bankruptcy or default on it loans, so was its CityCenter partner, Infinity World. And obviously it didn’t want to be stuck holding the bag. So, Infinity World, a division of Dubai World, decided to sue MGM Mirage for breaching their partnership agreement and salvage what little it could. The lawsuit was based on MGM...

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JetBlue’s recent campaign championing the airline as being the best substitute for CEOs who can no longer fly private jets has received nearly universal praise, including some in a post I wrote right here on BNET. But not everyone is happy. The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) has sent a letter to JetBlue asking that they pull the campaign. Something tells me that this is...

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Dubai partner sues MGM Mirage over CityCenter – Infinity World reported that it is suing its CityCenter partner, MGM Mirage, to protects its investment and rights in the project. Infinity World is a part of Dubai World, a Dubai developer partnered with MGM Mirage in the $8.6 billion CityCenter complex on the Las Vegas Strip. Infinity says that recent statements about MGM...

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When I see a new 8-K being release by an airline these days, I instantly get nervous. The news has not been good, to say the least. This time, it was United’s 8-K that made me a bit queasy. Looking at revenue, United now says that during the first quarter, revenue per available seat mile (RASM) will be down a steep 11 to 12 percent. Ugh. And United has been one of the most disciplined...

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