Barack Obama is a master at grabbing and keeping his audience's attention, which is the number one goal of any public speaker. How does he do it? Here are five key lessons from Obama's rhetorical playbook.
Yesterday Google showed off its forthcoming Chrome OS, leaving many to wonder how exactly the company will monetize it. The answer: it won’t. Since Google derives 97% of its revenue from online ads, it simply wants you using a computer that is always online. Specifically, it wants you on a computer that is one click [...]
Even smart people make financial moves that are downright illogical. Emotions and superstitions have a sneaky way of keeping you from rational financial decisions. But dumb choices can have serious, real-world consequences. Here are some of the biggest blunders we all make, plus tips from the experts on how to keep cool.
May 2009
MGM Mirage raises $1 billion – MGM Mirage reported Thursday that it raised $1 billion in a public stock offering, in an attempt to raise $2.5 billion to pay off its $14 billion in debt. The company, headed by Kirk Kerkorian, said it will use the proceeds to pay at least $750 million to its senior credit facility. The company sold 143 million shares of common stock. It also is selling...
When you think of Spirit, you probably have a negative impression of the airline, right? The DOT complaint numbers show that a lot of people feel that way, but Spirit wants to change that. No, they’re not looking to improve their service but rather they want people to better understand what they’re all about. Spirit is an airline that has floated through several identities over...
As the National Transportation Safety Board continued to investigate a Continental Connection flight which crashed near Buffalo, N.Y. and killed 50 people, details emerged citing that pilots were tired, had failed past licensing tests and were grossly underpaid. Rebecca Shaw, copilot on the doomed Colgan Air Flight 3407, made only $23,900 a year, about a third of similar pilots, and worked...
More than three and a half years since America West and US Airways merged, the integration of the pilot groups continues to inch forward very, very slowly. A big milestone was reached yesterday when the courts finally ruled in favor of the former America West pilots. It’s about time. But of course, this is still far from over. Before I get into yesterday’s news, how about a brief...
I promise that this is my last post on Virgin America’s recent performance, but I crunched some more numbers and found some interesting indicators hidden in the operational stats. It’s time to dive into the world of RASM and CASM. (Click for definitions) For the fourth quarter, Virgin America saw RASM of 8.97 cents, up 1.8 percent from Q3. That’s a very slight gain, but the...
Southwest tire fire forces emergency evacuation — Southwest Airlines Flight 519 landed at Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport Tuesday evening when one of its tires caught fire, causing the flight crew to evacuate everyone using inflatable emergency chutes. Fire crews arriving at the tarmac put out the blaze which didn’t spread to any other part of the plane. A Southwest...
January load factor numbers came out last month, but after looking back at Virgin America’s Q4 yesterday, I thought it would be worthwhile to look for any leading indicators of the airline’s Q1 performance. They aren’t good. In Q4, you saw an airline that was stagnant. It wasn’t growing (actually shrunk slightly), and there were no signs that profitability was anywhere...
The Union of Concerned Scientists have compiled a guide to green travel — favoring buses, coach airline seats and trains — to create a smaller carbon footprint. Some of the findings: First-class seating takes up more space than coach seating, so the average first-class passenger on a domestic flight is responsible for generating twice as much carbon as someone seated in coach....
DOT data for the fourth quarter of 2008 was released this week, and as usual, I dove right in to see how Virgin America did. The answer? They did not do very well. Lower fuel prices helped mask the loss, but without that benefit, it was a worse quarter than Q3. The airline’s net loss shrunk from $59.1 million to $36.9 million. Net margin shrunk from -52% to -34%, but this improvement...
Hearings begin today in the case of Continental flight 3407, the Q400 aircraft which crashed on landing in Buffalo earlier this year. Remember how everyone jumped on the idea that this was caused by icing? That’s probably not going to be the focus anymore. Instead, it appears that the heat will fall on the pilot and on Colgan Air’s training program. Colgan is the one that...
Subscribe to Travel blog comments RSS 
BNET Travel provides daily industry trends and news coverage with insights for managers and executives into all aspects of the travel and tourism industry. In addition to detailed airline and hotel company profiles, we bring you industry analysis on new travel and carrier routes, bankruptcies, mergers, tourism figures, investments and a host of other important business issues.
