AVIATION
US probes air carriers
US federal prosecutors on Wednesday said they had begun an investigation into possible collusion among the airlines to limit seating, two years after the US Department of Justice approved the latest in a wave of airline mergers, saying that the combination would benefit consumers. In letters sent to airlines, prosecutors have asked for documents from the last two years related to statements and decisions they have made about limiting capacity on flight routes. By making it harder for passengers to find seats, airlines could limit competition and increase fares. The inquiry, which appears to be in its early stages, is a significant shift for a department that in November 2013 cleared the way for the merger of American Airlines and US Airways, after initially filing a suit to oppose it. The merger, opposed by consumer advocates, created the world’s largest airline.
INTERNET
PayPal set to buy Xoom
PayPal, the online payments company weeks away from an expected spinoff from eBay, took a leap into the growing digital money transfer business on Wednesday by acquiring Xoom, a big player in the field. PayPal is set to spend US$25 per share in cash to acquire the publicly traded Xoom, or about US$1.09 billion. Excluding Xoom’s cash and short-term investments and including its debt, PayPal is to spend about US$890 million. Xoom is part of a wave of upstarts challenging traditional money transfer businesses like Western Union in the enormous global remittances market, which is valued at about US$600 billion this year by the World Bank.
AVIATION
Tokyo adds robot staff
Tokyo’s Haneda Airport plans to lease 11 robots in September that would clean the facilities and carry baggage. Authorities said if the robots are good at the work then more airports around the nation would hire them. “I want to expand it to all other airports in Japan and also to airports worldwide,” Japan Airport Terminal Co president Isao Takashiro said. The airport operator leased the robots from Cyberdyne Inc, the two companies said in a statement yesterday. Robots are invading Japanese workplaces as companies grapple with an aging and shrinking labor force. About 26 percent of Japan’s 127 million population are aged over 65, the highest percentage among the top seven industrialized nations. The robots introduced yesterday resemble wet-dry vacuums or motorized stools rather than people.
CHEMICALS
DuPont spinoff created
When DuPont Co announced plans to spin off its major chemical operations in October 2013, it said the move would create a cash-generating dynamo with the leading market share in most of its businesses. The spinoff was to let DuPont focus on higher-value products such as solar-panel materials and genetically modified crop seeds, as well as alternatives to fossil fuels. The new company, Chemours, created on Wednesday, inherited 37 active plants globally that produce materials such as titanium dioxide, a pigment that adds opaqueness to paints, and fluorochemicals such as Teflon nonstick coatings. DuPont investors have been given one Chemours share for every five DuPont shares they own. Chemours is to owe DuPont a US$4 billion dividend for share buybacks. Chemours shares, which have been trading since June 19, have fallen 21 percent.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last