Officials at US Airways, which is struggling to meet the conditions of federal loans that lifted it out of bankruptcy last year, began making the case for more wage and benefit cuts Friday to skeptical union leaders who have already publicly declared that "the concessions stand is closed."
US Airways has been working on a strategy since December, when its chief executive, David Siegel, said that unexpectedly heated competition from low-fare carriers was forcing it to revise the business plan on which it had based its emergence from bankruptcy last spring.
Executives at US Airways, which is based in Arlington, Virginia, outlined the company's financial situation to its labor advisory council, which includes unions representing the pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, ground personnel and other employees.
The airline said it lost US$98 million in the fourth quarter, compared with a US$794 million loss a year earlier.
"The company discussed, in very general terms, a framework of the future direction" that US Airways would take, said a US Airways spokesman, David Castelveter.
US Airways' unions have consistently said they would not grant a third set of contract concessions, on top of two sets of wage and benefit cuts the airline sought as part of its restructuring. Indeed, yesterday's meeting was not a formal bargaining session, but a regular quarterly meeting.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day