Schilhabel, a football coach, is paraplegic. As he told ABC7 in Chicago, he had already encountered problems when he and his wife were trying to make a connection at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, on their way to the Dominican Republic from Los Angeles.
United Continental Holdings’ (UAL – Free Report) wholly owned subsidiary, United Airlines, has yet again reported strong traffic figures. For December 2018, consolidated traffic — measured in revenue passenger miles (RPMs) — was 19.33 billion, up 6.9% from the year-ago figure.
Consolidated capacity (or available seat miles/ASMs) rose 6.4% on a year-over-year basis to 23.37 billion. Also, load factor (percentage of seats occupied by passengers) expanded 40 basis points (bps) to 82.7% as traffic growth outpaced capacity expansion. Notably, this is the carrier’s eighth consecutive month of load factor increase. The successive rise in load factor indicates the carrier’s efficiency and is a key catalyst for its profitability position.
Moreover, load factor climbed 120 bps at the end of 2018 with the carrier registering a 6.4% and 4.9% expansion in RPMS and ASMs, respectively.
Apart from solid traffic figures, the carrier’s expansion initiatives are encouraging. Last month, this Chicago, IL-based airline announced 11 new services from its hubs in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and Washington, DC. The carrier will begin weekend operations to Colorado, Florida and Oregon. Additionally, it will introduce daily flights to Nova Scotia effective Jun 6. (Read more: United Airlines to Offer Extra Services From Key Hubs)
United Continental Holdings, Inc. Price
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United Continental holds a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Some other top-ranked stocks in the same space are Azul SA (AZUL – Free Report) , Allegiant Travel Company (ALGT – Free Report) and Spirit Airlines, Inc. (SAVE – Free Report) , each flaunting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Shares of Azul and Spirit Airlines have rallied more than 13% and 32%, respectively, in a year’s time. Meanwhile, Allegiant boasts an impressive earnings surprise history, having trumped the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the last four quarters, the average beat being 18.7%.
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The federal government said late Tuesday that it has identified funding to keep the Supplemental Nutrition Food Program, which provides food assistance to about 1.2 million low-income people each month in Michigan, operating through February.
That’s good news, but operating dollars for the Commodity Supplemental Food Program — which provides monthly boxes of food for tens of thousands of senior citizens in the region — run out after this week. The government will continue to provide food for the senior meal program through February, but that won’t cover administrative costs.
Thanks to a large warehouse on its Detroit campus, Focus:HOPE has about two months of food stored for the 44,000 seniors it provides with a box of food each month.
That store can sustain the senior food program into mid-March, Focus: HOPE President and CEO Portia Roberson said, and the nonprofit, which operates on a $32 million annual budget, has some general fund dollars to cover the $230,000 it takes to operate the program each month.
“Obviously, that could not go on for a year. … the hope is we won’t have to go for an extended period of time,” Roberson said.
A more immediate concern: Federal employees who aren’t being paid during the shutdown are likely to need food assistance. Gleaner’s Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan is coordinating with United Way for Southeastern Michigan and 10 area pantries and food distribution sites to ensure those who need food while they wait for their next paycheck can get it.
There are an estimated 5,000-6,000 federal employees in the state, with the bulk of them here in Southeastern Michigan, according to reported estimates.
Those employees work for federal departments including the Transportation Security Administration, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said Gleaners President and CEO Gerry Brisson.
This is the first week federal workers will miss a paycheck, but most people live paycheck to paycheck, “so we can’t have no response now,” Brisson said.
Gleaners has begun packing 1,000 food boxes with staples like spaghetti and spaghetti sauce to get federal employees over the hump, he said.
The boxes will be available starting Monday at 10 pantries/food distribution sites in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Livingston and Monroe counties.
Most people can make it for a week without a paycheck, he said, so “we think 1,000 boxes will be more than enough to get through the first wave,” with distribution expanded as needed.
The first wave of boxes will cost Gleaners $23,000.
“We have operating cash for emergencies, about 60 days of operating cash in the bank just for this kind of thing,” Brisson said.
“But there’s no question if the emergency lasts a long time, we’re going to have to go out and ask people to help us.”
United Way has agreed to serve as a referral point, directing federal employees who call its 211 health and human services hotline to the nearest pantry for a food box.
United Way’s 211 staff is prepared to offer that support, said Eric Davis, vice president of basic needs, health and outreach.
“The next couple of weeks I think we should be OK. But if it goes much larger than that, we’re going to have some serious problems … once the benefits start to diminish,” Davis said.
Child nutrition programs such as Women, Infants and Children, and other food assistance programs will also see funding into February and March.
“SNAP is the biggest concern. It is the biggest federal food program. All of the other food programs combined don’t do as much as SNAP,” Brisson said. In Michigan, the program has more recipients than any other entitlement program offered, outside of Medicaid.
Beyond food assistance programs, federal housing and rental subsidies are being jeopardized by the shutdown, “putting people at risk of losing their place to live at the coldest time of the year,” Gilda Jacobs, president and CEO of the Michigan League for Public Policy, said in an emailed statement.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. airport security workers and air traffic controllers working without pay have been warning that security and safety could be compromised if the government shutdown continues, but the Trump administration said on Wednesday that staffing is adequate and travelers have not faced unusual delays.
Union officials said some TSA officers have already quit because of the shutdown and many are considering quitting.
“The loss of (TSA) officers, while we’re already shorthanded, will create a massive security risk for American travelers since we don’t have enough trainees in the pipeline or the ability to process new hires,” American Federation of Government Employees TSA Council President Hydrick Thomas said. “If this keeps up there are problems that will arise – least of which would be increased wait times for travelers.”
Unions will hold a rally on Thursday on Capitol Hill urging an end to the shutdown.
“There has been no degradation in security effectiveness and average wait times are well within TSA standards,” Transportation Security Administration spokesman Michael Bilello said. There are 51,000 airport security officers, and he said the agency has brought on hundreds of new ones.
Bilello said there had been no spike in employees quitting and that on Tuesday, 5 percent of officers took unscheduled leave, up just slightly from 3.9 percent the same day last year.
U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Homeland Security committee, asked the Trump administration how it is ensuring adequate staffing at airports.
“TSA officers are among the lowest paid federal employees, with many living paycheck-to-paycheck,” Thompson wrote. “It is only reasonable to expect officer call outs and resignations to increase the longer the shutdown lasts, since no employee can be expected to work indefinitely without pay.”
TSA said that on Tuesday it screened 1.73 million passengers and 99.9 percent of passengers waited less than 30 minutes.
Bilello said TSA is still hiring officers and working on contingency plans in case the shutdown lasts beyond Friday, when officers would miss their first paycheck since the shutdown began on Dec. 22.
TSA has brought on about 500 new officers since the shutdown with 300 more expected to start later this month. “In order to maintain the right level of staffing, it’s critical to have a continuous process of recruiting, training and getting new officers to our nation’s airports,” Bilello said.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association noted that the number controllers is now at a 30-year low, with 18 percent of controllers eligible to retire.
If a significant number of controllers missed work, the Federal Aviation Administration could be forced to extend separation requirements, amount of time between takeoffs and landings, which could delay travel.
The FAA closed its training academy in Oklahoma City for new air traffic controller hires. The FAA suspended training and limited safety efforts to “urgent continued operational activity to protect life and property.”
NATCA President Paul Rinaldi said controllers often must work overtime and six-day weeks at short-staffed locations. “If the staffing shortage gets worse, we will see reduced capacity in the National Airspace System, meaning more flight delays,” Rinaldi said.
Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by David Gregorio
Nine federal agencies closed in the middle of the holiday season: departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, State, Transportation and the Treasury.
Ten years ago today (January 8), we had a theory — that local news could be delivered with integrity and timeliness — and free of charge to …
“Support animals” will no longer be allowed on United Airlines flights longer than eight hours.
United officials say they are seeing more on-board animal-related incidents, adding many are not used to spending so much time on a plane.
In addition, United won’t allow kittens or puppies less than four months old as support animals, in-cabin pets, or service animals. The airline says animals that young typically haven’t had all necessary vaccinations.
United joins Delta Airlines in changing polices on emotional support animals.
A paraplegic passenger is calling out United Airlines for its lack of equipment at two different airports.
(iStock)
A paraplegic customer is claiming he was forced to scoot down the aisle of a plane multiple times because of a lack of proper equipment.
Tyler Schilhabel was traveling on United Airlines from Los Angeles to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, with his wife for their honeymoon, WLS reported.
AIR NEW ZEALAND PASSENGERS GROUNDED FOR TWO HOURS WITH DEAD BODY ON BOARD
When Shilhabel landed in Chicago’s O’Hare airport to make his quick connecting flight, he was not given an aisle chair, a type of wheelchair used by passengers getting in and off the plane. Instead, a United Airlines flight attendant physically carried him out to his wheelchair, which was waiting in the terminal.
“One of the flight attendants, who knew that I was in a rush and the aisle chair wasn’t there, he actually picked me up, lifted me and put me into my normal chair so that I could make my connecting flight,” Schilhabel said to WLS.
Though the airport allegedly had an aisle chair, airline staff reportedly decided carrying Shilhabel would be faster.
The traveler’s problems with proper equipment did not end there, however.
Once the couple landed in Punta Cana, Schilhabel allegedly had to scoot his way down the plane aisle on his bottom since the airport did not have an aisle chair. Once off the plane, Schilhabel had to slide down the stairs with the help of his wife as the airport’s accesible lift was broken, Schilhabel tweeted out.
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“I had to scoot on my bottom all the way to the front of the plane, and when we realized there wasn’t a ramp or anything else, my wife and I just decided, no, it’s not safe. We don’t trust them to carry me down the flight of stairs, so we just hopped down. She grabbed my legs, and I hopped down step by step on my bottom,” he said to WLS.
On the way back, Schilhabel said he suffered more problems. This time when landing at O’Hare, an aisle chair was not available at all and the passenger claims he had to scoot out of the plane once again.
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United Airlines said in a statement to Fox News that they have apologized to Schilhabel and are actively looking into this matter and working to ensure it does not happen again.
“We are proud to operate an airline that doesn’t just include people with disabilities but welcomes them as customers. In fact, thousands of people with disabilities fly United every day. That said, this incident falls far short of our own high standard of caring for our customers. We have been in touch with the customer to apologize and assure him that the errors that led to this situation are extremely rare.”
United Airlines confirmed to Fox News that the company has ordered a new lift for the airport at Punta Cana to avoid situations like this in the future.
London: A Daily Chronicle representative interviewed Mr Holt Thomas, director of the Aircraft Manufacturing Company, who says the air journey to Australia can now be done at a hundred miles an hour, including stoppages, and the speed for a world journey will soon be 130 miles an hour.
A single airman will not fly all the way to New South Wales. One man will go to Paris and find another airman waiting there. In five minutes the mail receptacles will be transferred to the second machine, which will resume the journey.
A 300-mile trip is sufficient for any one pilot. It is important to develop an air-cooled engine to replace the present water-cooled engine, which becomes faulty in the tropics and the Antarctic regions, through the water either boiling or freezing.
A trans-Atlantic flight, Mr Holt Thomas says, should be accomplished in 1919, but no seaplane could stand the Atlantic roller.
Battlefield tourism
No sooner have we settled down, says an Australian writer (though lots of us find it still impossible to do so), to the idea of peace, than the pleasure-as-usuals begin to plan about running overseas, and here and there, and with stupefying callousness, talk gaily of ”doing the battlefield”, as though this terrible war was just a rehearsal for a military picture film, and they are off to see the finished performance!
But it will be many a day before the troops of the Allies are all off French soil, and many a day after that before the French authorities will allow their country to be overrun by gazing tourists. A warning has been issued to globe trotters that they may book for the overseas trip, but there is no promise that they can get back within a specified time.
Anyone can take the voyage over (who after the full and plenty of our warfare can put up with the rationing that must still go on in England for some time), but it might be two or even three years before they can get back.
Fruit shortage
The changeable and frequently inclement weather which has been experienced for several weeks past has necessarily had the effect of making the season later for all classes of produce. From the point of view of the householder, this has been particularly noticeable in the case of fruit.
The crop of most classes of fruit this year will unfortunately be smaller than usual, a frost on Christmas morning having, we are informed, extended the damage attributable to previous late frosts.
In the case of strawberries, apparently the one fruit of which the supply in the shops has been at least equal to, if not in excess of, the average, the season is estimated to be fully four weeks behind that of a normal year.
– ODT, 9.1.1919
COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ
The U.S. air travel industry has begun to feel the sting of a lengthening government shutdown amid delayed training for new pilots and air traffic controllers coupled with an uptick in sick leave by transportation security employees required to work without pay.
President Trump is slated to give a national address on Tuesday on the now 18-day shutdown of departments including the Transportation Security Administration, a lapse prompted by White House demands that Congress provide more funding for a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico than lawmakers have been willing to give.
[Read more: Pelosi, Schumer to deliver rebuttal to Trump’s Oval Office address]
The White House is currently deciding whether to declare a national emergency to sidestep Congress and free up money for the wall. Trump wants more than $5 billion in funding to fulfill his signature campaign promise — one he told voters repeatedly that Mexico would pay for. Democrats in both the House and Senate, meanwhile, have vowed to bring legislative activity to a halt until a measure is passed to fund the agencies not covered by a separate government spending legislation last year.
As the shutdown hinders government services and raises questions about potential delays in U.S. tax refunds, U.S. airlines are contending with delays in the certification of new aircraft as well as employee training, according to a spokeswoman for Airlines for America, the industry’s top lobbying group.
“We urge elected leaders to reach an agreement and reopen the federal government quickly,” she said in an emailed statement.
The shutdown has hurt some carriers more than others. Southwest Airlines is “not experiencing any significant impacts to our operation at this time,” a company representative told the Washington Examiner.
American Airlines did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Delta Air Lines declined to comment.
Airports are also under pressure. TSA agents — who are deemed essential and therefore must show up for work even though they will not be paid until funding resumes — are calling in sick in higher numbers, spurring concerns over the ability of the agency to continue to oversee travel safety in the U.S.
On Monday, TSA had an unscheduled absence rate of 4.6 percent, up from 3.8 percent a year ago, an agency representative told the Washington Examiner. The uptick is “having minimal impact on operations,” the spokesman said in an emailed statement, adding that 99.9 percent of passengers on Monday waited in security lines for less than 30 minutes.
TSA agents have not yet missed a paycheck, but they will if the shutdown continues past Friday.