Law360 (February 14, 2019, 7:06 PM EST) — Expedia Inc. has asked a New York federal judge to temporarily stop United Airlines’ plan to block the travel fare aggregator’s users from booking post-September 2019 flights, saying it’s in breach…
BELLEVUE, Wash. (AP) — Expedia Group Inc. boosted fourth-quarter revenue by selling more hotel rooms and airline tickets, but write-downs pushed profit down 69 percent, to $17 million.
The results still beat expectations for the online travel agency.
The shares jumped $9.13, or 7 percent, to $137 in extended trading Thursday after losing a penny in the regular session. At Thursday’s close, the stock had gained 13.5 percent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard Poor’s 500 index rose nearly 9 percent.
Expedia said that fourth-quarter adjusted profit was $1.18 per share, topping the $1.07 average forecast of 11 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.
Revenue rose 10 percent to $2.56 billion. Eleven analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $2.54 billion.
About two-thirds of Expedia sales come from booking lodging on sites including Hotels.com, and that revenue grew 10 percent. Growth in the vacation-rental segment HomeAway — a competitor to Airbnb — slowed to 20 percent in the fourth quarter but grew 29 percent for the full year.
Airline revenue rose 18 percent, as Expedia sold more tickets and at higher average prices.
However, the Bellevue, Washington-based company is locked in a potentially damaging legal fight with a major airline customer.
This week Expedia said that United Airlines is threatening to pull flight information from its sites after a breakdown in talks over a new contract.
Expedia sued United and asked a federal judge to block the airline from cutting Expedia’s access to information about seats and fares. The companies’ current contract expires this fall.
In a heavily redacted complaint, Expedia said it would lose customers for years if United carried through on its threat.
United Airlines spokeswoman Maggie Schmerin said Expedia has refused to take part in “constructive discussions” about a new contract, and United expects its fares won’t be listed on Expedia sites after Sept. 30. She said that because Expedia might not be able to help United ticket holders after that date, United told Expedia it plans to bar Expedia from booking tickets for United flights on or after Oct. 1.
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Big Bang Theory star and real-life neuroscientist Mayim Bialik had some serious Twitter beef with United Airlines earlier this week when the actress claimed she had a boarding gate slammed in her face and was denied entry on her flight from Houston.
“To the United Airlines flight attendant who shut the boarding gate in my face, I made my connecting flight in Houston.” Bialik wrote on Twitter. “You said there were plenty of open seats. When you saw my carry-on suitcase you said there was no room and shut the door on my face.”
The issue came down to Bialik’s bag. Airline staff claimed the luggage wouldn’t fit on the aircraft because there was no more room for carry-ons, despite Bialik’s claims that five other passengers were permitted to take their luggage following the incident.
“Why couldn’t my little suitcase somehow fit?” the star Tweeted. “Maybe the first class seat I was supposed to sit in could have held it and I would have gladly sat in all of the open seats anywhere on that plane.”
Clearly still upset by the ordeal, Mayim took to Instagram to slam the airline once more.
“As [airline staff] turned me away, you let 5 other people on from my connecting flight because I had a carry on suitcase. They can carry ons too,” Bialik wrote in her Instagram post. “I understand everything was shut but that lady stewardess didn’t have to shut the boarding door like she did in my face without even saying she was sorry… maybe she hates The Big Bang Theory…”
United Airlines spoke to Fox News, simply stating “We were able to get Ms Bialik on the next flight to Los Angeles and we are reviewing what happened with our team in Houston.”
Travelling with un-checked luggage saves a whole lot of time and hassle, but when it comes to overhead lockers, it’s a free-for-all.
Just because you’re seated in 10A for example, doesn’t mean that the locker above your head belongs to you, and if you arrive and it’s full, it’s your responsibility to find some free space.
The best way to ensure you carry-on luggage makes it on the plane is to get to the gate early and line up first. This way, you’ll be one of the first on the plane and have first pick of locker space.
A lot of airlines have quite rigid rules about the size and weight of carry-on, so it’s important to know how much you can bring on to avoid having to check your luggage or worse – bin some of your gear.
SHERIDAN — The interline agreement between the Denver Air Connection and United Airlines has taken effect as of Friday, according to DAC Business Development Director Wade Goetz.
The agreement allows passengers to book trips that include flights to or from Sheridan and Riverton through United’s website and have their luggage automatically transferred between each leg of the trip.
Goetz said the first passenger to use the new service flew from Salt Lake City, Utah to Riverton Monday.
He noted, however, that the implementation of the agreement was the first part of a longer process. Right now, Goetz said, fares for trips that originate locally are currently much higher than flights leaving from Denver because United does not yet apply discounts to local flights that it does to flights leaving Denver.
To help passengers secure better price, Goetz said United has agreed to let passengers fly to Denver from one of the local airports and purchase the ticket for the second leg of their trip once they arrive.
“We anticipate going in a doing some further negotiations, trying to get some better fares on the interline portion so you’re just buying the one ticket,” Goetz said. “So it’s a step-by-step process.”
Goetz also said Sheridan and Riverton will begin appearing on flight aggregators, like Expedia.com or Travelocity.com, in the next four weeks.
“Anticipate in the next couple of months that you’ll see better and better pricing and better and better opportunities with this and we’re going to keep moving from there,” Goetz said.
Passengers traveling from Sheridan with Denver as their final destination should still book their flights through Flysheridan.com, Goetz said, as those flights will not appear on United’s site.
TAMPA — United Airlines is looking to expand its operations at Tampa International Airport with a new $33 million maintenance hangar.
The Hillsborough County Aviation Authority on Thursday will consider leasing the airline 9.5 acres at the southwest corner of N West Shore and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. boulevards. The land, which is east of Tampa International’s terminal and airfield, would become home to a two-bay maintenance hangar and tarmac for United’s Boeing 737 jets.
Talks about United building a new maintenance facility at the airport have been underway since 2015. The airline flies 277 flights a week, serving six markets, into or out of Tampa International. In December, it carried 9.7 percent of passengers flying to or from Tampa, making it the airport’s fifth largest airline, behind Southwest, Delta, American and Spirit airlines.
In June, United plans to double its daily service between Tampa and San Francisco to twice a day. The expanded service will allow business fliers to get to San Francisco for an afternoon meeting or dinner and return to Tampa on the new red-eye flight.
As proposed, United would build the hangar. It would lease the land from the airport. It would start to pay rent 24 months after the agreement is approved, whenever its new hangar is finished or as soon as it starts to use the property for its operations, whichever comes first. United would pay $297,950 during the first year of the 20-year agreement, with the rent rising annually in line with changes in the consumer price index. The airline would receive a rent credit of about $1.2 million for doing site preparation work that normally would be the responsibility of the airport.
The United hangar would be just west across West Shore Boulevard from a 70-acre area where the airport is looking to expand its growing cargo operations. In October, the aviation authority hired a Massachusetts firm, the Middlesex Corp., to design and build an expansion estimated to cost $72 million. The airport saw more than a 100 percent increase in the weight of cargo shipped from 2015 to the middle of last year, a rate of growth only second to Cincinnati.
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Contact Richard Danielson at [email protected] or (813) 226-3403. Follow @Danielson_Times
Copyright (c) 2019 Baptist Press. Reprinted from Baptist Press (www.baptistpress.com), news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.
The original story can be found at http://www.bpnews.net/52399/nev-united-airlines-on-2019-sex-exploitation-list
Nevada enslaves women through legalized prostitution and United Airlines has not addressed passenger reports of inflight sexual assault and harassment, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) said in releasing its 2019 Dirty Dozen List today (Feb. 11).
The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue (SI), Netflix and Massage Envy spa also made for the first time the Dirty Dozen list of companies that promote and enable sexual exploitation.
“No corporation or mainstream entity should profit from or facilitate sexual exploitation,” Haley Halverson, NCOSE vice president of advocacy and outreach, said in releasing the list. “Unfortunately many well established brands and organizations in America do just that.”
Nevada’s legalization of prostitution, active in 10 counties, has enabled the state to become the largest illegal sex trader in the country, with 63 percent more activity there than in New York state, the nearest aggressor, NCOSE said.
“Under this legal framework, women are consumables,” said Lisa Thompson, NCOSE vice president of policy and research. “Like all systems of prostitution, Nevada’s sexploitation industry has a predatory dependence on women facing dire economic circumstances, and oftentimes with childhood histories of neglect and sexual abuse.” Women are sometimes recruited from jails, their bonds paid by brothel owners, NCOSE said.
United Airlines has exhibited systemic inappropriate reactions to sexual harassment in flight, NCOSE said.
While complaints have occurred on “virtually every airline,” Halverson said, “United aircrews have apparently received especially ineffective training.” The airline “appears to be chronically ill-prepared to address the growing problem of viewing pornography on airplanes, which creates a culture of sexual harassment.” In the enclosed environment of air travel, she said, children likely would be exposed to pornography.
Among other top abusers, SI peddles women’s bodies for public consumption, Massage Envy mishandles complaints of sexual assault committed during massages, and Netflix promotes child prostitution, NCOSE said, notably in its original series “Baby.”
Returning from 2018 on the seventh annual list are Amazon, Google, HBO, Roku, EBSCO Information Services, STEAM online video game distributors and Twitter.
The Dirty Dozen list “is an activism tool that gives the power back to individuals to speak out against corporatized sexual exploitation,” Halverson said. CVS Pharmacy’s removal of the SI swimsuit issue from checkout counters is one of NCOSE’s latest victories, Halverson said.
Among other NCOSE’s successes, Halverson said, Google no longer links pornographic videos to advertisements; Hilton Worldwide and other hotel chains no longer offer pornographic movies on demand; Walmart has removed Cosmopolitan Magazine from its checkout aisles; and the U.S. Department of Defense no longer offers pornographic magazines on military bases.
NCOSE markets itself as “the leading national organization exposing the links between all forms of sexual exploitation such as child sexual abuse, prostitution, sex trafficking and the public health crisis of pornography.”
NCOSE’s Dirty Dozen list and accompanying narratives are available at endsexualexploitation.org/dirtydozen-2019/.
Instead, it was his explanation last year that the airline waits for no one, not even famous people, in its quest to be on time.
We endured a 35-day shutdown. Then we got a reprieve, just before things got really bad: Canceled commercial flights, missed tax refunds, the whole bit.
United Continental (NASDAQ:UAL) spent much of the past decade as the laughingstock of the airline industry. A series of customer-service gaffes and mediocre service led to erosion of its once-loyal customer base. Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) capitalized on the opportunity to poach some of United’s most valuable customers, enabling it to consistently outperform the other major airlines in terms of unit revenue and profitability.
However, United Airlines has dramatically improved its reliability and customer service in the past couple of years, and it’s starting to rebuild its reputation. Its efforts helped it post strong profit growth last year. Now, United plans to go on the offensive to win back business travelers by dramatically expanding its premium-seat inventory.
The first big change United is planning is the introduction of Bombardier‘s CRJ550 to its regional fleet starting later this year.
Today, United Airlines has more than 300 50-seat regional jets that lack first class or extra-legroom seats, compared with only 255 larger regional jets with up to 76 seats that offer the full range of premium seating options. For comparison, Delta has about 325 large regional jets and has reduced its 50-seat jet fleet to fewer than 150 aircraft. United’s pilot contract would make it difficult to add more 76-seat jets to its regional fleet, but the result is that it offers an inferior passenger experience, especially for high-paying business travelers, on many regional routes.
United’s pilot contract limits the number of 76-seat regional jets it can operate. Image source: United Airlines.
The CRJ550 is a specially modified version of the CRJ700 designed to fix that problem. The CRJ700 is typically configured with 65 to 70 seats, but the CRJ550 will have just 50 seats, along with a reduced maximum take-off weight, allowing it to comply with United’s pilot contract.
Beginning in the second half of 2019, United Airlines will add 50 CRJ550s to its fleet. Each will be outfitted with 10 first-class seats, 20 extra-legroom seats, and 20 regular coach seats, which means it will be easy for business travelers to score upgrades. The extra space on the aircraft will be used for a self-serve beverage and snack station for first-class passengers and luggage closets to allow more carry-on bags to be brought on board. The CRJ550s will be based in Chicago and Newark, New Jersey, and deployed on routes with particularly high premium demand.
United Airlines will also increase the number of first-class seats from eight to 12 on its Airbus A319s and from 12 to 16 on its A320s over the next few years. That will match the number of first-class seats Delta Air Lines already has on its A319 and A320 fleets.
In another major change, United Airlines will retrofit 21 of its Boeing 767-300ERs over the next two years to increase the number of premium seats. In addition to installing 22 of its new Premium Plus premium economy seats on these planes, the carrier will increase the number of lie-flat business-class seats from 30 to 46.
United is steadily rolling out Premium Plus across most of its widebody fleet. Image source: United Airlines.
To make room for this big increase in premium seating, United will slash the aircraft’s seat count from 214 to 167. Virtually all of the reduction will come from the regular economy cabin, which will shrink from either 135 or 138 seats today to just 52 on the new version. The number of extra-legroom economy seats on each 767-300ER will stay roughly flat at 47.
United Airlines will deploy the first retrofitted 767s on its Newark-to-London route. This route carries a huge number of business travelers who are willing to splurge for better seats. United’s D.C.-to-London and Chicago-to-London routes also seem like good candidates for premium-heavy 767s. Some of its routes to Paris could also fit the bill. These key European destinations have seen a surge in capacity from budget carriers in recent years, driving down economy fares, so replacing regular coach seats with premium seats seems like a sensible idea.
In total, United’s fleet modifications will add more than 1,600 premium seats to its inventory over the next few years, a roughly 10% increase. These changes will help the carrier continue to grow its unit revenue. First, premium fares are dramatically higher than standard coach fares. Second, the introduction of the CRJ550 could help United regain corporate travel market share from Delta by enabling it to offer first-class service in certain smaller markets.
The real question is whether these moves will hurt United Airlines’ efforts to hold down nonfuel unit costs. Last year, adjusted nonfuel unit costs dipped 0.2%, and the carrier projects that adjusted nonfuel unit costs will be flat or slightly down once again in 2019. However, in recent years, United and its peers have offset other cost increases by squeezing more seats onto their airplanes.
Now, the seating density of United’s planes is set to go into reverse starting in late 2019 and accelerating in 2020. In addition to the 767 retrofits, United is also decreasing the number of seats on several other widebody models as part of its Premium Plus rollout.
It will be much harder for United Airlines to keep nonfuel unit costs flat or better when it’s shrinking the number of seats on dozens of aircraft. But if United can find enough offsetting cost savings to limit its nonfuel unit cost growth to 2% or 3% in 2020, the revenue benefit of higher premium seat inventory should easily outweigh the increase in unit costs, enabling further earnings growth.