Travel Industry Archive

Following on the heels of Continental, US Airways has released its guidance for February revenue numbers and once again, the results are not pretty. This time, it actually provides a very good way of seeing the impact of lower demand. Unlike Continental, US Airways didn’t see much of a change in load factor for February. In fact, it was down only 0.2 points from 76.7 to 76.5 percent...

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MGM Mirage may default this year — MGM Mirage reported the company is studying its financial situation and may violate its debt agreements with its senior credit facility this year. Noncompliance and default could occur if the economy and the gaming industry continue to experience declines in revenue — which is likely. As a preventive measure, the company is seeking a waiver to...

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Ontario is just one of many airports that has entered what I like to call the spiral of doom. The airport has seen traffic drop by nearly a third and now it’s raising costs to fly there. Seem crazy? Yeah, but sadly it’s the state of affairs at many smaller airports today. Ever since Ontario built its new terminal, it hasn’t been a cheap airport. The costs tended to be...

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Perhaps it should have been a sign when tennis greats-turned-investors Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf bailed from the Tamarack Resort’s luxury hotel project. Or perhaps that the resort, owned by Jean Pierre Boespflug, relied on real estate sales of 2,100 chalets and condos to finance itself — unfortunately right at the housing bust. Only 250 were completed. The all-year ski and...

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I always look forward to the beginning of the month, because it’s when Continental releases its monthly traffic report. As I’ve said before, I love Continental’s releases because they give unit revenue estimates as well as just traffic so we have the whole picture. The news for February came out today, and folks, it ain’t pretty. Continental reported weak revenue and...

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Marriott CFO says room demand to stay low — Room revenue at Marriott International Inc. is 17 percent down from last year and Chief Financial Officer Arne Sorenson says he doesn’t expect improvement. Sorenson said the company doesn’t feel confident about the future or the present economy, also mentioning that fewer group bookings in late 2008 and early 2009 contributed to...

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I love bankrupt airlines. There’s nothing like the required monthly financial reports to give us some insight into broader trends around the industry. We’ll have to wait another couple months for all the solvent airlines to report first quarter earnings, but we already know how Frontier’s January went. It actually wasn’t too bad. Frontier squeezed out an operating...

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