Free Republic

Agency aids stranded travelers $5M budgeted to help those grounded by airline shutdowns By Allison Schaefers aschaefers@starbulletin.com The Hawaii Tourism Authority gave tourism leaders approval yesterday to spend up to $5 million in emergency funds to underwrite additional airline service for passengers who have been unable to secure alternative flights following the shutdown of ATA Airlines' operations. In the aftermath left by the shutdown of two prime West Coast carriers, some 9,000 stranded visitors were still trying to get out of Hawaii, and another 1,377 visitors and residents were trying to make it back to the islands. While some 6,200...

Loss of ATA and Aloha could mar tourism By Allison Schaefers aschaefers@starbulletin.com The loss of nearly 15 percent of the airline capacity to Hawaii this week with the abrupt closure of ATA Airlines and Aloha Airlines is sending shock waves through the state's visitor industry. State tourism officials said other carriers' existing flights could have filled the void left by Aloha. But the loss of ATA's seats could cause state visitor counts to fall by more than a half-million in the next nine months if new flights are not added, said state Tourism Liaison Marsha Wienert. "It could be devastating...

INDIANAPOLIS — ATA Airlines canceled all flights Thursday after filing for bankruptcy as it posted advisories at ticket counters in the handful of cities it still served and sought help for stranded travelers. The Indianapolis-based airline, once the nation's 10th-largest, entered bankruptcy for the second time in just over three years Wednesday, this time citing the loss of a key military charter business. The airline had approximately 50 flights per day, mostly between Hawaii and four west coast cities — Oakland, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas, said company spokesman Michael Freitag. ATA said has been in contact with other...

INGLESIDE — A new way to move shipping containers might be tested in Ingleside as early as next year. Stephen Roop, designer and assistant director of the Texas Transportation Institute, a research and development agency working with the Texas A&M University System, has developed a freight shuttle that would move a container from point A to point B on rails. The process would be automated and computerized, with the owner of the shuttle programming where the shuttle needs to take the container. The concept is to alleviate congestion on highways and ship cargo more efficiently, Roop said. It was developed...

Today, in the remote northeast corner of California, technology innovator and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen will hit the big red button. No, he won't be throwing heavy-duty machinery into an emergency shutdown, nor will he be sending ICBMs screaming from their silos (traditional functions for ruddy buttons). Instead, he'll be christening a new telescope that, in its significance, could eventually outpace the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. The famous technologist will be inaugurating the initial 42 antennas of his namesake, the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) – the first major radio telescope designed from the pedestal up to efficiently (which is...

May 31, 2007 - The Alliance for Aviation Across America (AAAA), of which EAA is a member, has effectively rebutted an extremely misleading pro-user fee commercial produced by the Air Transport Association (ATA) that began running in airports around the country, including on the CNN Airport Network. ATA’s commercial, which features cartoon airplanes awaiting takeoff on a runway, falsely claims that airport congestion is caused by small aircraft, that small aircraft get preferential treatment at airports, and that they don’t pay for costs imposed on the system. AAAA countered by simply stating the facts, including that small aircraft make up...

A confident Southwest Airlines (LUV:NYSE) beat analysts' first-quarter targets Thursday and said it might very well meet or exceed its own goal of 15% earnings growth this year. On top of that forecast, the carrier said it plans to grow its fleet as well, by exercising options for 79 additional Boeing jets. Despite a 10% rise in unit costs, driven by sky-high fuel prices, the Dallas-based carrier made $61 million, or 7 cents a share, in the quarter, compared with $59 million, or 7 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding hedging losses and gains, earnings rose to 8 cents...

DALLAS - The bidding war for bankrupt ATA Airlines' assets heated up on Friday when Southwest Airlines offered at least $100 million in cash and loans for gates at Chicago's Midway Airport and an alliance with ATA, its main rival there. Southwest chief executive Gary Kelly said the bid represented the only way that his company could meet its top goal of expanding in Chicago. He said Southwest's proposal would let ATA Airlines Inc. still operate at Midway but with fewer gates. Southwest is seeking to upset the bid of another low-cost carrier, AirTran Airways, a unit of Orlando-based AirTran...

In the airline industry's dark months after the September 2001 attacks, the federal government, banks, aircraft lenders and others came forward to help, giving the wounded companies plenty of leeway in the face of extraordinary circumstances. But three years later, the benevolence is gone. In a form of tough love that is quickly spreading, these same backers are putting the clamps on the still-troubled airlines, particularly those operating under bankruptcy protection. The backers are giving chief executives at United Airlines, US Airways and ATA Airlines their marching orders: enforce strict timetables, conserve cash, reduce spending and eliminate jobs - or...

Astronomers have completed their most sensitive search yet for radio signals from intelligent life in space. They believe the best way to find ET is to look for a radio signal. Such signals can travel vast distances. The Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, supported by Jodrell Bank, searched over a period of 10 years. The scientists looked at 800 nearby stars with no evidence of a signal from ET. They say they have learned a lot, and plan another search next year. From the ashes The last star scrutinised by Project Phoenix - the most powerful search for intelligent...

A Moroccan has been charged with more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder in connection with the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, the German authorities said yesterday. Mounir El Motassadeq was accused of membership of a terrorist organisation and being an accessory to murder in 3,116 cases, Kay Nehm, the chief federal prosecutor said. Mr Nehm said El Motassadeq, 28, was an integral member of a terrorist cell in Hamburg which included three of the four suicide pilots, Mohammed Ata, Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah. He is alleged to have acted as logistics and finance manager...

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The Bush administration is reluctantly facing mounting evidence that Iraq was involved in both the Islamic suicide attacks on New York and Washington as well as the anthrax outbreak in the United States. U.S. government sources said an investigation of the anthrax attacks against Congress has pointed to evidence that Iraq could have been responsible. They said that Iraq is the only country that produces agents found on some of the letters. The sources told the ABC television network that the anthrax found in a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was laced with bentonite. ...

Recently, I received a message from the Airline Pilots' Security Alliance (1), which is a coalition of the Allied Pilots' Association, the Coalition of Airline Pilots' Associations, the Air Line Pilots' Association, and the Independent Pilots' Association. The message concerned arming commercial airline pilots, but it provided some very good information the national media seems to have overlooked. For instance: “Most people don't know that for many decades after the dawn of commercial aviation, airline pilots carried firearms in the cockpit without incident. However, in late 1987, after a suicidal attacker broke into the cockpit of an airliner, murdered the...