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<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/business/11global.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>Rich Nations Pushing for Coordination in Rescue</title>
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<description><![CDATA[The United States and six other nations agreed to a plan to rescue the financial industry, but fell short of offering concrete steps to backstop bank lending.    
]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/business/worldbusiness/11ripple.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>Economic Uncertainty Spreads</title>
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<description><![CDATA[Around the world, fears of recession have fed a stock market panic, as worries about toxic assets spread from the financial sector to the credit markets and now to the broader economy.    
]]></description>
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<title>As Stock Falls, Morgan Looks to Japanese Bank</title>
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<description><![CDATA[Morgan Stanley was racing to secure its financial lifeline from a big Japanese bank as confidence in the embattled Wall Street bank continued to erode.    
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<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/business/worldbusiness/11ruble.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>Russia to Spend Billions Buying Shares on Stock Exchanges to Bolster Confidence</title>
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<description><![CDATA[The move would support one of the world’s hardest-hit markets from the credit crisis, as the country suffered fresh blows from plunging commodity prices.    
]]></description>
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<title>Russia Approves $36 Billion Loan Plan</title>
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<description><![CDATA[Parliament passed a law unlocking Central Bank lending to private banks in a $36 billion bailout, continuing a strategy that has relied on making government oil profits available to banks.    
]]></description>
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<title>Iceland&#x2019;s Banks Face Overseas Claims</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/business/worldbusiness/11icebank.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Across Europe, countries, companies and consumers are discovering exposure to the three main Icelandic banks, all of which have been taken over by the government.    
]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/business/worldbusiness/11charts.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>Off the Charts: The World&#x2019;s Banks Could Prove Too Big to Fail &#x2014; or to Rescue</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/business/worldbusiness/11charts.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[As the banking system quaked this week in many countries, one question was asked quietly: Can the governments afford it?    
]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/business/worldbusiness/11yen.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>Global Anxiety Catches Up to Japan&#x2019;s Economy</title>
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<description><![CDATA[The world’s second-largest economy, which had seemed immune from the global financial contagion, is suddenly looking a lot more vulnerable.    
]]></description>
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<title>Iran Vendors Protest Move to Collect a Sales Tax</title>
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<description><![CDATA[The protests, the largest since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005, occurred in several large cities.    
]]></description>
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<title>As Crisis Spreads, Global Approach Weighed</title>
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<description><![CDATA[The U.S. and Britain appear to be coming to a common solution a day before a meeting of financial leaders.    
]]></description>
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<title>Estonia&#x2019;s Let-It-Be Economy Is Rattled by Worldwide Distress</title>
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<description><![CDATA[Estonia, the former Soviet republic that has embraced capitalism, is reluctantly turning to state intervention as it confronts an economic slowdown.    
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<title>Memo From Tokyo: Scarred by Past Woes, Japan Sees U.S. Bailout as a First Step</title>
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<description><![CDATA[Japan’s bitter memories of its banking meltdown in the 1990s made it sympathetic to Washington’s bailout efforts and reluctant to lecture America.    
]]></description>
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<title>Toyota May Make Prius a Brand and Widen the Model Lineup</title>
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<description><![CDATA[Toyota may create a separate brand for its Prius hybrid car and could add both larger and smaller Prius models to the lineup.    
]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09pound.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>News Analysis: Britain Takes a Different Route to Rescue Its Banks</title>
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<description><![CDATA[Britain offered an $88 billion government lifeline for the nation’s banks Wednesday, a solution that it hailed as a quicker one to the credit crisis than the U.S. bailout plan.    
]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09euroeast.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>Bank Crisis Is Bypassing Central and East Europe</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09euroeast.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[While consumer spending and growth rates are declining in the Czech Republic, Poland and other Eastern European countries, analysts say these trends are not related to the banking turmoil in the rest of the world.    
]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09ruble.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>In Russia, a Struggle for Markets Just to Stay Open</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09ruble.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Every day this week, regulators have had to halt trading on Russia’s main bourses, the world’s hardest-hit stock markets during the current crisis.    
]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/09views.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>Breakingviews.com: A Black Hole in Russian Banks</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/09views.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[It seems that no matter how many billions of dollars of public money the Russian government gives to assist markets and help the country’s bank, all that shares do is tumble further.    
]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/world/europe/08unity.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>Facing a Financial Crisis, European Nations Put Self-Interest First</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/world/europe/08unity.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[As the financial storm spread, some of the 27 nations that make up the European Union have broken ranks to protect their own citizens and banks.    
]]></description>
</item>

<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/business/worldbusiness/08icebank.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>Iceland, in a Precarious Position, Takes Drastic Steps to Right Itself</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/business/worldbusiness/08icebank.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[In addition to seeking a $5.5 billion loan from Russia, Iceland pegged its currency to an index and took control of one of its largest banks as it struggled to keep its economy afloat.    
]]></description>
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<title>European Legislators Back Emissions Rules</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/business/worldbusiness/08emit.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[European Union legislators voted in favor of laws aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but frustrated some environmental advocates by taking steps to ease the burden on industry.    
]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/business/worldbusiness/08esales.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>Europe Prepares Consumer Rights Plan</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/business/worldbusiness/08esales.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[The proposal to guarantee consumer rights for all European Union members is expected to help spur shopping online and across national borders.    
]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/business/worldbusiness/07emerge.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>Emerging Markets Find They Aren&#x2019;t Insulated From the Tumult</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/business/worldbusiness/07emerge.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Emerging markets took one of their biggest collective tumbles in a decade as stock markets from Mexico to Indonesia to Russia were gripped by fears of a collapse.    
]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/business/07tax.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>Trying to Ease Credit, I.R.S. Eases Loan Regulations</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/business/07tax.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[The Internal Revenue Service has taken steps to help ease the credit crisis by allowing corporations to ramp up their use of tax-free loans from overseas subsidiaries.    
]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09fobriefs-INFLATIONRAT_BRF.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>World Business Briefing | Americas: Brazil: Inflation Rate Falls</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09fobriefs-INFLATIONRAT_BRF.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Brazil’s monthly inflation rate dropped in September to the lowest in a year as food prices fell for a second month.    
]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09fobriefs-INDUSTRIALPR_BRF.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>World Business Briefing | Europe: Germany: Industrial Production Rises</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09fobriefs-INDUSTRIALPR_BRF.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Industrial production in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, rose the most in 15 years in August, led by demand for construction.    
]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09fobriefs-MERGERTALKSF_BRF.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>World Business Briefing | Europe: France: Merger Talks for Lenders</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09fobriefs-MERGERTALKSF_BRF.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Groupe Caisse d’Epargne and Groupe Banque Populaire, the French lenders that control Natixis, are in talks to merge as the global financial crisis pushes banks to combine.    
]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09fobriefs-MOREJOBCUTSA_BRF.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>World Business Briefing | Europe: Sweden: More Job Cuts at Volvo</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09fobriefs-MOREJOBCUTSA_BRF.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Volvo has tripled the number of planned job cuts to 6,000 positions, or 25 percent of its work force, citing a “rapidly deteriorating” auto market.    
]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09fobriefs-NEWHOMESTART_BRF.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>World Business Briefing | Americas: Canada: New Home Starts Increase</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09fobriefs-NEWHOMESTART_BRF.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[Canadian new-home starts unexpectedly rose in September, the second straight monthly increase, led by new condominiums in cities.    
]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09fobriefs-TALKSBEGINON_BRF.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>World Business Briefing | Europe: Italy: Talks Begin on Alitalia</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09fobriefs-TALKSBEGINON_BRF.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[CAI, the Italian investor group, is beginning talks this week to sell a stake in Alitalia to Air France-KLM Group or Deutsche Lufthansa.    
]]></description>
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<item rdf:about="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09fobriefs-TATATOBUYCIT_BRF.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss">
<title>World Business Briefing | Asia: India: Tata to Buy Citigroup Operations</title>
<link>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/worldbusiness/09fobriefs-TATATOBUYCIT_BRF.html?partner=rssnyt&#x26;emc=rss</link>
<description><![CDATA[India’s largest outsourcing firm, Tata Consultancy Services, is buying Citigroup’s back-office operations in India for $505 million in cash, the companies said on Wednesday.    
]]></description>
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<title>Shuttle Scuttlebutt</title>
<link>http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/seat-2B/2008/10/07/The-Shuttle?tid=true</link>
<description><![CDATA[Delta Air Lines' decision to add first-class cabins to its shuttle flights between New York, Boston, and Washington sounds like good news. It's not&mdash;it's another sign that the East Coast shuttles are a dying breed.Delta, which says its up-front sections will be ready by the end of November, is matching a move made several years ago by the US Airways Shuttle, the distant progeny of the once-omnipotent Eastern Air Lines Shuttle. Although Delta didn't say so, its rationale is the same too. The shuttles have become less profitable, busy, and important; configuring the aircraft with standard first- and coach-class cabins means that the planes can be moved around the carriers' entire flight systems.Few air routes have their own dedicated aircraft, of course, so what's the big deal? This move comes on the heels of other ego-bruising shuttle realities. Several years ago, both carriers dumped their service guarantees: Show up on time to fly and you'll get a seat, even if they have to roll out a plane just for you. Discontinuing that relic of the Eastern Shuttle's glory days allowed the carriers to strip several backup aircraft from the shuttle fleet. The carriers have also switched to smaller aircraft that carry fewer passengers per flight and fly less frequently than ever, especially during off hours and weekends.It's remarkable that we are talking about a declining shuttle market when New York bankers, Washington politicians, and East Coast media elites are busily remaking the underpinning of the nation's economy. Fifteen years ago, aviation journalist Barbara Petersen called the shuttles &quot;the fabric that bound together the Northeast elite, a democratic institution that treated celebrities and working stiffs alike with the same legendary indifference.&quot;But the myth of the shuttle has run smack into numeric realities. In their late-1980s heyday, the two shuttles served a total of about five million flyers a year. As recently as 2000, about 4.7 million passengers piled on board. Yet only 3.2 million customers flew a US Airways or Delta Shuttle flight in the 12 months ended in June.Where have all the flyers gone? Some have been replaced by technology. Email, PDFs, and video teleconferencing mean fewer couriers and low-level executives are needed to shuttle documents around. The superelite have moved to private jets, making New York to Washington one of the most popular routes for corporate aircraft.&nbsp;Others have moved to alternate airlines and airports. From the moment that Eastern created the concept of hourly, no-reservations-needed flights in 1961, the Northeast Corridor shuttles have been limited to three airports: New York's LaGuardia, Boston's Logan, and Washington's Reagan National. But Continental Airlines has won over New Jersey business travelers who prefer using Newark Airport. American Airlines and JetBlue Airways fly from John F. Kennedy Airport. And many Washington-area flyers find Dulles International more convenient than Reagan National Airport. You'll also find a lot of former Shuttle flyers on the Acela, Amtrak's eight-year-old high-speed rail service that connects Boston, New York, and Washington, with intermediate stops in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Acela now carries more than three million passengers a year. Its traffic climbed 7.7 percent during the first 10 months of Amtrak's current fiscal year, and the service accounts for more than 25 percent of the railroad's total nationwide revenue.I'm not nostalgic about planes or airlines, but I miss the Shuttle's glory days. Like most of its riders, I have used the Shuttle for profit (I was a New York-based writer for the defunct Washington Star) and pleasure (a two-year affair with a woman in Washington). I've flown the shuttles when they were run by Trump (he equipped aircraft with faux-marble lavs and gilt paint) and Pan Am, which moved its flights into La Guardia's Depression-era Marine Air Terminal. I loved New York Air, which ran a predecessor of the Delta Shuttle, and handed us bright-red nosh bags filled with bagels and miniature cheesecakes. I even miss being rained on in the tumbledown hangar that Eastern used as its passenger &quot;terminal&quot; and weaving my way through the rabbit warren of corridors in the old National Airport. In the halcyon days of 2,000 frequent-flyer miles for each Shuttle flight, I earned enough for many free first-class tickets to Hawaii. And I miss Charlie Rangel. I always seemed to end up sitting next to the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee on flights back to New York. (He had the best scarves and cashmere coats!)But I also should tell you: I'm writing this on a train hurtling toward Washington. I haven't flown the Shuttle in years. The Fine Print&hellip;More than a dozen bus lines&mdash;some with familiar names like Greyhound and Trailways, others with a 21st-century pedigree like Megabus and Boltbus&mdash;now compete with the shuttles too. The most notable is LimoLiner. It runs lavishly appointed motor coaches configured with just 28 reclining leather seats. It has WiFi, worktables, flowers in the lavatory, and an onboard attendant. It travels between the Hilton hotel in New York's Rockefeller Center and the Hilton Back Bay in Boston. The one-way fare is about $90.Related LinksFlying on Empty Deals Taxi for TakeoffNo WiFi in the Sky
      
  
   
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<item rdf:about="http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/seat-2B/2008/09/30/Business-Travel-and-Terrorism?tid=true">
<title>Fly the Unfriendly Skies</title>
<link>http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/seat-2B/2008/09/30/Business-Travel-and-Terrorism?tid=true</link>
<description><![CDATA[The nation's financial upheaval has sucked so much oxygen out of the media room that we've barely gotten coverage of a horrific bombing of the Marriott in Islamabad 10 days ago and the September 17 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Sana'a, Yemen. But out of media sight is not out of business travelers' minds. We know what this stuff means to our lives on the road. We all have a playbook, a set of time-tested rules honed during a generation of terrorism aimed at travelers in general and U.S. business travelers in specific.Shorn of politics, polemics, and the ideology, staying safe when traveling internationally often starts with a simple assumption: Avoid anything that smacks of U.S. capitalism. U.S. flag airlines, lodgings flying the flag of an American hotel chain, and even American fast-food outlets have disproportionately been targets of terrorists in the last 40 years.The Islamabad bombing on September 20 is a textbook example. The hotel building is owned by a Pakistani businessman. The heavily guarded property is just a few hundred yards from the prime minister's residence. The bombers seemed interested in making a statement about internal Pakistani politics. Most of the hundreds who were killed and wounded were not Americans. But the Marriott name drew business travelers from around the world and made the bombing more newsworthy, because it was seen as an attack on an icon of U.S. business.America's high-profile allies often pay too. No U.S. airline serves Pakistan, but British Airways got the message. Two days after the Marriott bombing, B.A. canceled its flights from London to Islamabad indefinitely.&quot;I've put British airlines and hotels on the 'do not use' list too,&quot; the travel manager of a major multinational corporation told me last week. &quot;I think our experienced travelers knew instinctively without being told, but our newbies need to be reminded. In troubled times, you lower your profile and avoid as many symbols of Western commerce and culture as you can.&quot;Back in the day, that often meant switching from a U.S. airline to a &quot;neutral&quot; carrier like Swissair; KLM, the Dutch airline; or SAS, the international airline of Scandinavia. But Swissair is out of business. SAS is less omnipresent than it used to be, and KLM is now part of a company controlled by Air France&mdash;and has issues, as vividly shown by last week's on-board terrorist arrests at a German airport.&nbsp; These days, travel managers tell me, the neutral airlines are carriers such as Singapore Air or Air Canada, which offers decent worldwide connections via its Toronto hub. Lufthansa and Japan Airlines are also perceived to be safe, although it's worth nothing that no carrier is immune to a potential terrorist attack.&nbsp;Many travel managers and security consultants I know recommend their clients use hotels that cater to Japanese business travelers. Japanese travelers are especially sensitive to personal security, and Japanese corporations conduct extensive safety audits of hotels where they book top executives. Unfortunately, the world's terrorists aren't focused solely on U.S. icons, so you need to do a lot of work to minimize your risk. Here are some tips that have proven valuable in previous periods of travel insecurity.Get Better Global Intelligence U.S. news outlets do a poor job of covering international affairs. Americans have been told nothing about a recent resurgence of violence in Spain blamed on ETA, the Basque separatist group. An alarming upswing in crime and kidnappings in Mexico's largest cities has been ignored too. Even relatively savvy U.S. travelers may not have heard about the instability in Bolivia, which has become so severe that American Airlines last week suspended its flights there.To fill the information gap, start with the country-specific data sheets published by the U.S. State Department. To offset any perceived bias (some critics claim that the State Department is too hard on our adversaries and turns a blind eye to troubles in countries we consider allies), check with the similar services offered by the British, Canadian, and Australian governments. The C.I.A.'s World Factbook is also useful.You needn't rely solely on government sources, of course. The BBC's news-gathering operation is available online, which links to more than 1,800 global TV streams, including useful news channels in dozens of languages. And if you travel overseas regularly, get on the HotSpots mailing list of the ASI Group. The free newsletter offers a daily snapshot of breaking travel and security news around the world. Rely on the Locals Even if you have help from a corporate travel department and do your own homework, make sure to consult your most valuable resource: The people on the ground where you're headed. Whether it's a branch office or a potential client, locals usually have the best advice . They'll often be more frank on a one-on-one basis, so contact them individually via a personal mobile phone or private email address.Lower Your Profile Dress casually, not like a well-to-do executive. Leave expensive luggage, high-priced clothing, and the bling at home. Don't advertise your name or company affiliation by using your business card as your luggage tag. Needless to say, don't take risks you wouldn't take at home. Choose Your Lodgings Carefully Book rooms in hotels that offer accommodations on a concierge, club, or executive floor. (They provide an additional, if small, layer of security.) And make sure you use hotels that offer a full range of in-house services: valet parking (so you don't have to enter a garage or parking lot); limo service (so you needn't rely on street cabs); and on-site restaurants, meeting rooms, cocktail lounges, business centers, and health clubs.Beware of Crime As frightening and dangerous as terrorism is, more international business travelers fall victim to garden-variety street crimes. Travel with as little cash as possible&mdash;and don't flash your wallet or your wad. Have copies of all valuable documents (passports and visas) and credit-card information in case you are victimized. Make sure you know the location and contacts for the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate. And never hang the &quot;Make up my room&quot; tag on your hotel-room doorknob. It's an obvious tip-off that the room is empty&mdash;and ripe for a burglary. If you need maid service, call housekeeping.The Fine Print... A follow-up on two recent columns: The new JetBlue Airways terminal at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport that we mentioned two weeks ago has been delayed until October 22. And as predicted in last week's column, the upheaval on Wall Street has had impacted premium-class travel to London. Through the end of the year, American Airlines is offering a free companion ticket for future travel when you fly to Britain and Delta Air Lines is offering double miles on selected flights to London and France.Related LinksTips for a Sky-High SpringLuggage in LimboThe Next Small Thing in the Skies
  

   
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<item rdf:about="http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/natural-selection/2008/09/24/Frequent-Fliers-and-Flame-Retardants?tid=true">
<title>Frequent Fliers and Flame Retardants</title>
<link>http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/natural-selection/2008/09/24/Frequent-Fliers-and-Flame-Retardants?tid=true</link>
<description><![CDATA[A recent study released in Sweden about flame retardants showing up in the cabin air inside commercial airliners&mdash;and inside passengers, at high levels&mdash;may shed light on a mystery that I discovered in 2006.    That year, I happened to be in an airport waiting for a long flight when I got the news that swirling inside my body were levels of flame retardants 12 times higher than average in the U.S., and 100 times higher than levels found in Europeans.    The results were delivered by phone from a specialist on polybrominated diphenyl ethers&mdash;P.D.B.E.'s&mdash;a type of flame retardant that until recently was added for safety to products ranging from mattresses and clothing to plastics and electronics found in televisions, computers, and on airplanes.    P.D.B.E.'s are mixed into products such as airline tray tables, seats, carpet, and wiring to raise the temperature at which they would otherwise ignite, making them harder to burn. These chemicals save hundreds of lives a year from death by fire, but they also can break loose as gas and particles released into the air, where they attach to dust that people can breath in.    In mice and rats, high doses of P.D.B.E.'s interfere with thyroid and liver function, and cause neurological problems that include impairment of learning and memory. They also have caused problems with neurological development in fetuses and newborns.    P.D.B.E.'s are suspected carcinogens&mdash;which has led the European Union to ban them. In the U.S., California has banned some versions of these chemicals, and Washington State has banned them all.    Scientists have found P.D.B.E.'s all over the Earth, in polar bears in the Arctic, cormorants in England, and killer whales in the Pacific.    When I was tested for my levels of this chemical and hundreds of others for an article in National Geographic, I expected to have normal levels of P.D.B.E.'s&mdash;until &Aring;ke Bergman of Lund University in Sweden phoned from Stockholm. He asked me if I was sitting down and then paused for what seemed like a very long time.    &quot;I hope you are not nervous, but your concentration is very high,&quot; Bergman said in a light Swedish accent. My blood level of one particularly toxic P.D.B.E., found primarily in U.S.-made products, is 249 parts per billion&mdash;that's 12 times the mean found in a recent Centers for Disease Control study that tested thousands of Americans.    My levels would be high even if I were a worker in a factory making the stuff, Bergman said.    Yikes, I thought, glad that I was sitting down, though Bergman hastily assured me that even my levels were a long way off from being dangerous&mdash;as far as anyone knows.    &nbsp;Trying to get to the bottom of why my levels might be so high, Bergman quizzed me: Had I recently bought a mattress or sheets, or a new car? Did I work for many hours near a new computer?    I kept answering no until I got an idea: Could my onboard stash of flame retardants come from airplanes?    &quot;Yah,&quot; said Bergman, &quot;do you fly a lot?&quot;    Yes, I said, I log about 200,000 miles a year.    &quot;Interesting,&quot; Bergman says, telling me that he has long been curious about P.D.B.E. exposure inside airplanes, whose plastic and fabric interiors are drenched in flame retardants to meet safety standards set by the Federal Aviation Administration and its counterparts overseas.   Since 2004, Boeing and other plane manufacturers say they have been phasing out the worst forms of P.D.B.E.'s, but these chemicals remain on older planes. At the time of the call, Bergman was hoping to run tests of P.D.B.E. concentrations in airplane air, and inside frequent fliers.    Now he and his team at Lund have done just that&mdash;although he cautions this is just a preliminary study with a few test subjects.    The study followed nine passengers who traveled on long flights of nine to eleven hours. They took air samples on their flights, and had their levels of P.D.B.E.'s tested in their blood before and after boarding.    The scientists found that the air onboard was thick with P.D.B.E.'s at high levels. The &quot;after&quot; levels in their blood also showed significant increases&mdash;though they were still far less than mine. &quot;The findings from this pilot study call for investigations of occupational exposures to P.D.B.E.'s in cabin and cockpit crews,&quot; concludes Bergman and his team.    The data I had sent to Bergman comes from the relatively new science of &quot;biomonitoring,&quot; which uses new technologies to detect and measure for the first time even tiny levels of chemicals in people and animals. Reports from the Centers for Disease Control have found detectable levels of chemicals ranging from pesticides and dioxins to plastic additives such as Bisphenyl-A inside people.    The dangers of such miniscule levels to people is unknown, though biomonitoring technologies are a crucial first step to finding out if these chemicals that protect us from fire and give us products that are basic to our civilization are causing harm or not.    In most cases, people aren't dropping dead. Even my 249 parts per billion is still far below a threshold that would cause alarm. (One part per billion is like adding a drop or two of red die into an Olympic-size swimming pool). But it's hard to know whether there is subtle, long-term damage such as cancer and neurological deficits.  Last year, the European Parliament passed a new law&mdash;called R.E.A.C.H., for Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals&mdash;that requires new chemicals to be tested for toxicity and proved safe. This standard had not existed before in Europe, and still does not exist in the U.S., where regulators in most cases require testing only if a chemical is suspected to be toxic.Fortunately, safer flame-retardant materials exist, and are beginning to be used, although products with P.D.B.E.'s will be with us for a very long time&mdash;at home and in the air.  This is not something to panic about, nor should it stop you from climbing onboard an airplane, although it should make us all want to find out more. You can also keep the dust down in your house and office, and buy goods from companies that claim to no longer use P.D.B.E.'s. These include Dell, Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Ericsson, Mitsubishi, and Sony.  Personally, I still fly, though occasionally I glance at someone's dusty sneakers as they board and wonder if some of that will end up in my lung, with a bit of P.D.B.E. attached&mdash;and what this means. Related LinksThe Guarantee PlanBank Soundness Datapoint of the DayA Plan That Just Might Work
      
  
   
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<item rdf:about="http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/seat-2B/2008/09/23/Airlines-Depend-on-Bankers?tid=true">
<title>A Run on the Bankers</title>
<link>http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/seat-2B/2008/09/23/Airlines-Depend-on-Bankers?tid=true</link>
<description><![CDATA[As Wall Street remade itself last week and world financial markets buckled, I pored through some interview transcripts to reacquaint myself with the Horny Banker Theory of business travel.It goes something like this: Airlines can charge corporate fliers 10 or even 12 times more than vacationers because business travelers need to get where they are going fast, with no advance notice and no price questioned. Surely, I said to an airline chief executive a couple of years ago, there was a breaking point. As corporations cracked down on travel and entertainment spending, wouldn't they demand airlines stop soaking them?&quot;Joe,&quot; the C.E.O. said knowingly, &quot;there's always an investment banker who needs to get home in time for a date.&quot;&quot;You're saying the entire airline pricing system rests on the mating practices of horny bankers?&quot;&quot;Well&hellip;uh&hellip;well&hellip;I wouldn't say it exactly that way. But what's a couple of hundred dollars or even a couple of thousand more or less to someone who's working a billion-dollar deal on one coast and has a dinner date that evening on the other coast? Breakfast meeting in London to lock up a deal and then a flight home to New York in time for the opera&mdash;what's that worth to someone generating billions and earning millions?&quot;I've never been convinced that the Horny Banker Theory held water, but we'll certainly find out now, won't we? No one argues that bankers and brokers, hormonally charged or otherwise, make up a disproportionately large slice of the airlines' most profitable segment: walk-up, full-fare, and premium-class fliers. In fact, the frequent-flying financial sector is what makes markets such as New York, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Dubai so attractive to profit-hungry airlines.&quot;This will be ugly,&quot; one glum airline executive distractedly mumbled last week as I was interviewing him on an unrelated matter. &quot;If your highest-paying fliers disappear, your reason for flying the plane disappears.&quot;Although airline math is often slippery and approximate, it's not difficult to figure out why it's hard to replace a banker flying on business. Take the NyLon (New York to London) route, for example. Off the record, airlines say their best corporate clients pay about $5,000 for a business-class round-trip. While that's about half the published walk-up business-class fare, it's also about 10 times the lowest advance-purchase fare that leisure fliers pay.In other words, for every Lehman banker or Merrill Lynch broker who was laid off last week and now won't fly on business between New York and London, an airline will need to find 10 vacationers to take his place. And while 10 fliers paying $500 each in coach equals the revenue of one grounded banker, the profit margin isn't the same. Discretionary fliers are more difficult to reach, more expensive to convert into customers and must be advertised to and sold to again the next time they fly. Not to mention all the extra space, extra luggage, extra fuel, and extra attention that 10 leisure fliers require.&nbsp;Low-fare coach passengers are &quot;ballast,&quot; one brutally honest airline executive told me not too long ago. &quot;You fill up the back of the plane with them and hope you break even. They are there to allow you to fly five or six times a day between cities so you can offer the frequency of schedule to the high-paying business traveler.&quot;I didn't use the NyLon run as a random example. New York to London is the premier international route in the Western world, and its primary customers have been financial types. As banking and brokerage firms shifted employees between the key English-language financial centers, New York-London traffic boomed. According to British aviation regulators, about 1.7 million people traveled between the United States and Britain in June&mdash;and almost one in four of them flew the NyLon route.Five U.S. and British carriers (American, Delta, Continental, British Airways, and Virgin Atlantic) fly the route dozens of times each day. Three all-business-class carriers (Eos, Maxjet, and Silverjet) tried to crack the market in recent years; two of them flew into London's Stansted Airport, which has a nonstop rail connection to The City. And next year B.A. plans to launch what can only be called a banker's transatlantic limousine. The 28-seat, business-class-only flight will link New York to tiny London City Airport, just minutes by taxi from Canary Wharf, London's satellite financial hub. It's not just NyLon that will be hit by the ongoing financial meltdown, of course. Four of the six U.S. legacy carriers (American, United, Delta, and Continental) and two alternate airlines (JetBlue and Virgin America) fly between metropolitan New York and greater Los Angeles. The route is essentially a shuttle tying L.A.'s entertainment industry to New York's bankers. The same carriers run frequent service between New York and the San Francisco Bay to link the high-tech industry to Manhattan's money. And the front cabins of transpacific flights from Los Angeles and San Francisco are jammed with bankers heading to major Pacific Rim manufacturing and financial centers.Bankers and brokers also dominate Amtrak's Acela and the New York-Washington Air Shuttle route. They pay a walk-up fare of $340 one way&mdash;an incredible $1.59 a mile&mdash;to fly the 214 miles between New York's LaGuardia Airport and Washington's Reagan National. That's about 13 times more on a per-mile basis than the average fare that airlines charge nationwide.What's it all mean? After a decade that has seen 9/11, serial bankruptcies, and a quintupling in the price of oil, airlines may now have to survive years without tens of thousands of their best and most profitable customers too. Horny or not, those folks are going to be missed.The Fine Print&hellip; A follow-up on last week's column about this season's new airport terminals. Detroit Metro opened without notable incident last Wednesday. But the schedule for the new Indianapolis terminal has changed. The airport will now hold an &quot;open house&quot; on October 11 and 12, but the big move of paying passengers and commercial flights will begin on November 11.Related LinksThe Skies Open OverseasThe Next Small Thing in the SkiesLater, London 
  

   
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<item rdf:about="http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/seat-2B/2008/09/16/New-Airline-Terminals?tid=true">
<title>Terminal Invasion</title>
<link>http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/seat-2B/2008/09/16/New-Airline-Terminals?tid=true</link>
<description><![CDATA[Want to scare the living daylights out of a business traveler? Just give him or her an itinerary that includes a city with a newly opened airport terminal.    This spring's disastrous opening of the 30-years-in-the-planning Terminal 5 at London's Heathrow Airport wasn't exceptional. It was the way of the airport world. In the last 15 years, travelers have taken it on the metaphoric chin when new aerodromes opened in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Athens, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Denver International, the last from-the-ground-up airport built in the United States (it opened in 1995), suffered through years of baggage troubles until a costly, high-tech luggage-handling system was abandoned. And 13 years later, the iconic fabric roof may still leak on passengers during a hard rain.     So you can imagine why I suggest you curb your enthusiasm over the news that four U.S. airports will open major new facilities before Election Day. Starting tomorrow, when a much-needed terminal opens in Detroit, business travelers will have to endure the debut of important buildings at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport and Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina. In Indianapolis, the entire airport is being moved down the runways and into a new terminal.    The rapid-fire openings are an accident of timing, and the remarkably similar design conceits&mdash;arched roofs meant to evoke wings and flight, and towering glass walls to let in natural light&mdash;reflect the current thinking in airport-terminal architecture. But what may go wrong at each of these airports is likely to be unique. After all, no one predicted the baggage chaos in London, the runway meltdown in Bangkok, or the initial lack of transportation options in Hong Kong and Athens. We'll know how well each facility works only after we use them.   Meanwhile, a brief preview of what's coming in the next six weeks.    North Terminal at Detroit Metro Airport The grungy, dilapidated terminals in Detroit are being serially replaced. The $1.2 billion McNamara Terminal opened in 2002 and eventually shook off its opening snafus&mdash;malfunctioning trams and atrocious housekeeping&mdash;to become a relatively efficient and passenger-friendly hub for Northwest Airlines and its SkyTeam Alliance Partners. Tomorrow brings the $430 million North Terminal, designed to house most of the other carriers serving Detroit. It'll be cozy compared with the mile-long concourse and 97 gates of the McNamara building, but the North Terminal won't be small: 824,000 square feet of space and a half-mile walk between the furthest of the 24 jet gates.     Best features: Restrooms immediately after security checkpoints; a nice fountain; a copious amount of power receptacles at key passenger points; and even strategically located workstations with stools.     Bad news: As the airline industry shrinks, six of the new gates aren't leased.     &nbsp;Terminal 5 at Kennedy Airport The slow and painful revival of Kennedy Airport as a world-class international airport gets another boost on October 1 when JetBlue Airways opens Terminal 5. The building was built in record time by New York standards (less than three years) and will give JetBlue nearly three times as much space (635,000 square feet on 72 acres) as it occupies now. The $743 million project encompasses 26 gates, three concourses, and 55,000 square feet of retail space, all of it needed since JetBlue handles about 30 percent of the 47 million passengers flowing through Kennedy each year.     Best features: Travelers will be able to use touchscreen monitors at the gate to order meals that will be delivered to them by one of the terminal's food and beverage outlets (there will be nearly two dozen). Since Terminal 5 was designed after 9/11, security requirements are an organic part of the layout, not a jury-rigged afterthought.     Bad news: The iconic terminal that Eero Saarinen designed for T.W.A. won't be part of T5's debut. Saarinen's now-empty masterpiece will eventually be restored, repurposed, and connected to the JetBlue facilities, however.    Terminal 2 at Raleigh-Durham International The fast growth of the Research Triangle has been mirrored, at least in fits and starts, at the airport. One example: When the first phase of Terminal 2 opens on October 26, it replaces the old Terminal C, which is just 20 years old. But Terminal C became superfluous when American Airlines abandoned its hub there in 1995 and the subsequent tenant, Midway Airlines, went bankrupt and then tanked after 9/11. When the $570 million project is completed in 2011, there will be 32 gates, copious security space, and about four dozen shops and restaurants spread out over 920,000 square feet.    Best features: Phase one will encompass 19 gates, three baggage carousels, and seven security checkpoints, not to mention a number of local vendors among the 26 shops and dining options. That's a fully functioning airport terminal by any standard.     Bad news: Phased development of terminals often means years of picking through a construction site masquerading as a working airport.     The New Indianapolis International Airport Two days after Raleigh, Indianapolis will try to move all of its passenger operations to a completely new terminal. The $1.1 billion project is situated on a greenfield site nestled between the airport's two main existing runways. It's designed to replace the city's 50-year-old terminal and will offer 1.2 million square feet of space and 40 gates. There'll be a new parking facility, too, and passengers will be able to take a moving walkway direct to their rental cars.     Best features: A Civic Plaza with a 200-foot-diameter skylight designed to echo the shape of Indianapolis' most-recognized downtown public space and a dedicated parkway that connects to I-70, the region's major thoroughfare.     Bad news: An overnight, all-or-nothing shift from the existing building to the new terminal, which guarantees that every passenger flying into or out of Indianapolis will be displaced at once.    The Fine Print&hellip; The new JetBlue terminal is connected via an enclosed skywalk to J.F.K.'s existing AirTrain, but none of the other three airport projects has a public-transportation component. However, Indianapolis says the median of its new airport roadway can accommodate a light-rail system.    Related LinksTips for a Sky-High SpringOpen Skies = Closed Options for SomeJetBlue: When Irish Skies Are Smiling 
  

   
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<item rdf:about="http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/features/2008/09/11/Mobile-Apps-for-Travelers?tid=true">
<title>A Concierge in the Palm of Your Hand</title>
<link>http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/features/2008/09/11/Mobile-Apps-for-Travelers?tid=true</link>
<description><![CDATA[For many business travelers, it's a recurring problem: You're wooing clients in an unfamiliar city and are faced with an even more unfamiliar wine list. That's exactly what happened to Tina Liao, media director at Freestyle Interactive, an online design firm in San Francisco, at a recent business dinner at STK in Los Angeles.      Instead of panicking, Liao reached for her iPhone and pulled up Nirvino, a mobile application that compiles wine reviews from print, online, and broadcast critics into data and suggestions. It provided her with enough specifics on taste and price to select a balanced pinot noir from Cloudy Bay, a winery in New Zealand. &quot;It saved me,&quot; she says.        displayPromoModule ('{"moduleType":{"value" : "linksModule", "index" : "0"},"l_mediaType1":{"value" : "article", "index" : "0"},"l_mediaType2":{"value" : "article", "index" : "0"},"l_mediaType3":{"value" : "article", "index" : "0"},"l_mediaType4":{"value" : "article", "index" : "0"},"l_url1":"/business-travel/seat-2B/2007/09/18/Airport-Dining","l_url2":"/business-travel/features/2008/07/13/Unusual-Airport-Income","l_url3":"/business-travel/features/2008/09/04/Hotel-Crime","l_url4":"","l_headline1":"Eating Well on the Fly","l_headline2":"Runway Money","l_headline3":"Crime in the Suites","l_headline4":"","l_src1":"/images/site/editorial/lifestyle/2008/09/paschals-medium.jpg","l_alt1":"Restaurant","title":"Also in Business Travel" }'); Road warriors have an ever-longer list of recommendation apps they can turn to while traveling. Drew Breunig, digital strategist at Ammo Marketing, a market research firm that covers the proliferation of these services, says business travelers soon will have hundreds from which to choose.       &quot;These devices and applications will eventually be so ubiquitous that they will lay an invisible data layer over cities, where people plan, interact, and converse,&quot; he says.       By pooling online data and opinions, the sites help users orient or situate themselves in unfamiliar environments, off-loading problems so travelers can focus on real work. Want to know about nearby landmarks? Restaurants? Traffic? Flights? Many of the newest tools even use G.P.S. to pinpoint your location.       Here's a sampling of some of the today's more popular mobile recommendation and navigation applications:      Nirvino Nirvino, available free for all Web-enabled mobile devices, has been described as &quot;Yelp meets Wine Spectator.&quot; In addition to compiling professional reviews, the service also lists amateur ratings, decanting normally hoity-toity wine assessments into evaluations everyone can understand. This summer, the service added beer and cocktails, relying on location-aware technology to help users find the highest-rated bars nearby.       GeoPedia You&rsquo;re on the road for work and jonesing for a dose of local history or some information on a quirky building? This free iPhone application will deliver information about landmarks as you go by. The service, from Trivialware, includes data about museums, historical spots, and other points of interest in dozens of U.S. cities. Since it's still in development, the database continues to grow every day.      TrafficGauge Save time and stress with this application, which delivers real-time traffic to an iPhone, BlackBerry, or Web-enabled P.D.A. in an easy-to-read map. The mobile service, which costs $2.99 per month ($35.88 per year), is a spinoff of a regular subscription service offered by TrafficGauge. One downside: As of July, only certain markets were available, including Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle.      Flight Stats  Savvy users of Web-enabled devices who fly regularly will want this free application from Conducive Technology, which gives the status of thousands of flights at more than 1,000 airports around the world. The service also provides data on flight arrival gates, airport parking, and weather systems. Users can search the database by flight number, route, or airport.Taxi! Designed specifically for iPhones, this 99-cent mobile application from Tap4Taxi finds taxi services in more than 260 cities across the U.S. All searches are automatically based on location, providing users with one-touch telephone connection. The application also offers user ratings and information about whether each company accepts credit cards.Urbanspoon This free mobile application has restaurant recommendations covered. Available for all mobile devices, the service aggregates user reviews (and amateur food photos) from top restaurants in dozens of U.S. cities. iPhone users can access a special location-aware version that recommends eateries within a few-mile radius.   Related LinksThe High Cost of a Low DollarFly the Unfriendly SkiesPhoning Home
      
  
   
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<item rdf:about="http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/seat-2B/2008/09/09/In-Flight-Food?tid=true">
<title>Food Fight</title>
<link>http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/seat-2B/2008/09/09/In-Flight-Food?tid=true</link>
<description><![CDATA[Toward the morning end of a transatlantic flight to Manchester, England, a flight attendant walked through business class ostentatiously carrying a cardboard tray of fresh eggs. After depositing his precious cargo in the galley, he reappeared, sidled up to each groggy passenger, and asked brightly: Can I make you a fresh omelet this morning? Just tell me how you&rsquo;d like it done.      As a bagel-for-breakfast guy, I declined. Really? We use fresh eggs. I make them myself, you know. No, a cup of coffee would be fine.       This, uh, Opera Oeuf plays out every day on many long-haul flights operated by BMI, a large British carrier once known as British Midland. The airline makes quite the big deal out of its meal service, claiming that business-class passengers are served &ldquo;international cuisine akin to the very best restaurant food, prepared by a fully qualified onboard chef.&rdquo;       The onboard &ldquo;chef&rdquo; is actually a flight attendant with some culinary chops. And for all the theater and flying fry cooks, BMI&rsquo;s onboard offerings aren&rsquo;t particularly different than the victuals served up front on any other international airline.       Airlines often spare no expense or P.R. frippery trying to convince high-ticket premium-class flyers that they are dining miles high on the hog. Famous chefs are signed to create special meals. Pricey champagne and fancy wines flow freely. Caviar still makes an occasional appearance. Ostentatious menus are presented with the solemnity of a prayer book. Depending on the carrier and the distance of the flight, feeding a first-class flyer can run into hundreds of dollars a passenger.       In coach, not so much. If any food is served at all these days, it tends to be the stuff of late-night comedy monologues: mystery meat in even more mysterious gravy, wine in a box, and the ever-popular wilted iceberg lettuce with fluorescent salad dressing. The cost-per-passenger can literally be counted in pennies.    Either way, I&rsquo;ve never understood travelers&rsquo; obsession with in-flight food, and I relish quoting comedian David Brenner: He&rsquo;s always said he didn&rsquo;t go to a diner expecting a flight to Los Angeles, so why should he get on a flight expecting an omelet? And I never forget the brutally frank assessment by one airline executive, who explained to me that airline food is essentially leftovers: It is prepared 24 to 48 hours in advance, wrapped in plastic, stuck in a refrigerator, and hastily and inexpertly reheated before serving.    Yet the galvanizing power of in-flight food is undeniable, a lesson United Airlines learned again last week. Customers of the nation&rsquo;s second-largest airline suffered silently as the carrier began charging for checked bags, raised fares, slashed frequent-flier benefits, and eliminated a slew of other practical amenities. But when United announced last month that it would stop serving free food in coach on some transatlantic flights, passengers pushed back and complained loudly and in large numbers. As a result, for the foreseeable future, the airline will continue to serve its lamentable in-flight coach fare as part of its basic international airfare.    &nbsp;Absurdly enough, though, in-flight food is not actually about the victuals.       &ldquo;It&rsquo;s 80 percent entertainment and 20 percent hunger,&rdquo; says Jack Foley, the New York-based executive vice president of Aer Lingus. A meal is one trick airlines use to keep passengers diverted during a long flight in a narrow, sterile metal tube.      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s also a way of marking the passage of travel time for experienced flyers,&rdquo; Foley adds. &ldquo;On a flight from Dublin, I once sat next to a passenger who started putting on his shoes when the flight attendant announced our tea-and-scones service. When I asked him why, he said, &lsquo;You always serve tea and scones an hour and a half before landing in New York, so I know it&rsquo;s time to get ready to get off the plane.&rsquo; &ldquo;      It&rsquo;s just as well that in-flight food isn&rsquo;t about gustatory greatness, because meal service isn&rsquo;t easy when you&rsquo;re five miles high. Even coffee is problematic because it&rsquo;s harder to bring water to proper temperature at 40,000 feet. When McDonald&rsquo;s did a Happy Meals promotion with a major carrier in the 1990s, the burger giant had to reformulate the cheese so it would melt rather than liquefy in flight. And forget about gourmet dining. How do you create a four-star meal when open flames are verboten, prep space is nonexistent, knives have rounded edges, and flight attendants must serve dozens of passengers at once using a convection oven?      The future of in-flight food is fairly clear. United&rsquo;s reversal notwithstanding, more and more coach passengers will have to go without, buy on the plane, or bring their own. Most domestic coach flights have already been stripped of traditional in-flight meals. Airlines are rushing to adopt &ldquo;cashless cabins&rdquo; and equipping flight attendants with portable credit-card devices so they can sell ravenous flyers more expensive and higher-quality salads, sandwiches, snacks, and wraps.      In-flight food for international premium-class travelers is changing too, but for an entirely different reason. With stricter security regimens in place, passengers spend more time waiting in the airlines&rsquo; lounges. So airlines are beginning to serve honest-to-goodness food there. The cuisine is better and it costs the airline less.      I&rsquo;ve had several wonderful curries in British Airways&rsquo; lounges. Some of the best dim sum I&rsquo;ve had outside of Hong Kong was in Vancouver, Canada, in Cathay Pacific&rsquo;s departure lounge&mdash;while I was waiting to fly to Hong Kong. The bacon sandwiches are outstanding at Virgin Atlantic&rsquo;s swanky arrivals club at London&rsquo;s Heathrow Airport. And while I&rsquo;ve never eaten there, who wouldn&rsquo;t be seduced by a sit-down meal at the elegant little restaurant nestled inside Lufthansa&rsquo;s First Class Terminal in Frankfurt?      Now if there was just an airline that served a good bagel for breakfast&hellip;      The Fine Print&hellip;   An update to last week&rsquo;s column concerning the market-driven battle between U.S. carriers that charge for the first checked bag and those that continue to bundle it in the fare. Continental Airlines has switched sides. Beginning next month, passengers flying on discounted coach tickets who do not hold elite status in the airline&rsquo;s frequent flyer program will pay $15.   Related LinksThe Last TabooTips for a Sky-High SpringThe Skies Open Overseas
  

   
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<item rdf:about="http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/features/2008/09/04/Hotel-Security-Tips?tid=true">
<title>Trip Tactics</title>
<link>http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/features/2008/09/04/Hotel-Security-Tips?tid=true</link>
<description><![CDATA[It&rsquo;s hard to say how common theft is at hotels, but it does happen. Rather than leave security entirely in the hands of management, take these precautions to make sure you don&rsquo;t lose your shirt&mdash;or watch or money or laptop. When checking in to a hotel, read the fine print on your room registration and in the room itself: Most hotels are not liable for anything that happens to your belongings. If leaving your luggage to be stored, make sure it will be in a locked room. To deter thieves, make it appear that your room is occupied by leaving the TV on and putting a &ldquo;Do Not Disturb&rdquo; sign on the door. Avoid broadcasting your room number. If a desk clerk announces it, request a room change. Use the room safe&mdash;or ,better yet, the hotel&rsquo;s own safe&mdash;for valuables. Buy a security cable so you can lock your laptop to a piece of furniture so it&rsquo;s secure even when you&rsquo;re not there. If something is stolen, don&rsquo;t just alert the manager but contact the local police to file a report; you&rsquo;ll likely need it if you want to seek redress with your insurance company; many homeowners&rsquo; policies cover losses on the road. However, according to the Insurance Industry Institute some companies limit the amount of such &ldquo;off-premises coverage&rdquo; to 10 percent of the insurance you have for all of your possessions. Expensive items like jewelry may require a rider to insure to their full value. As a further safeguard, you may want to carry documentation for items like cameras, video equipment, or a computer, in case something should happen to them while you&rsquo;re away.
  

   
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<item rdf:about="http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/features/2008/09/04/Hotel-Crime?tid=true">
<title>Crime in the Suites</title>
<link>http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/features/2008/09/04/Hotel-Crime?tid=true</link>
<description><![CDATA[On a trip to London a few years ago, security consultant Bruce McIndoe had a few hours to kill after checking out of his hotel room. So he left his luggage with the bell captain&mdash;something most business travelers do without a second thought. But McIndoe does think about it now, for when he returned that afternoon, he discovered his bags had been stolen. &ldquo;They said they were very sorry, but their luggage closet had overflowed and so they threw a few bags out in a hall unattended,&rdquo; he recalls. McIndoe knows he has plenty of company: As president of Maryland-based Ijet consultants, which advises corporations on protecting employees and property around the world, he&rsquo;s heard many tales of theft, petty and otherwise, at some of the world&rsquo;s better hostelries. Once, he learned that at a five-star resort in the Bahamas, a gang had been stealing items from guests while they lazed by the pool. &ldquo;The hotel was aware of it and was quietly dealing with it, but yet they did nothing to alert their guests,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The bottom line is that hotels have little interest in ensuring that their guests don&rsquo;t get pilfered.&rdquo; That&rsquo;s one reason it&rsquo;s hard to say just how common hotel crime is&mdash;they have little incentive to draw attention to problems, and most local law-enforcement authorities lump such incidents in with general statistics on crime. (More than a decade ago, the Justice Department&rsquo;s National Crime Victimization Survey found that the rate of crimes against travelers was 127.8 per 1,000 people, versus 213 crimes per 1,000 in the general population.) And unless the loss is substantial, travelers often choose not to pursue their grievance once they&rsquo;re back home. But anecdotes abound&mdash;both about theft and the lack of response from hotels. Hotels can usually duck legal responsibility for theft on their property, and victims of theft are often met with indifference or even skepticism from managers, especially since guests may be unable to offer hard proof that they were in fact carrying the valuables that are now gone. When McIndoe examined the fine print on his claim check, he was startled to learn it absolved the hotel&mdash;a full-service luxury property&mdash;of all responsibility. Although the hotel eventually offered some compensation, he was struck by how little protection consumers have in such circumstances. Now, he says, he always verifies that his suitcase will be in a locked room while it&rsquo;s out of his sight. But even cautious travelers may be tripped up. Melanie Graczyk, a loan officer with Access National Mortgage in Roanoke, Virginia, thought she knew all the rules: She&rsquo;s a frequent traveler, and her husband worked for years in the hotel business. When she stayed in the brand-new Hilton Garden Inn in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, last year, she was surprised to find that there were no safes in the room, so she hid $600 in cash in her drawer. During her stay, workmen entered her room to fix a broken air conditioner. Soon after that, she noticed the money was gone. She immediately reported the loss to the front desk. &ldquo;They told me I could walk to the police station and file a report,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;The reactions I got ranged from total indifference to almost accusatory.&rdquo; She followed up with letters and emails and finally heard from an insurance-company representative who said that under New Hampshire law, the hotel was not liable. (A manager at the property told Portfolio.com that the security was &ldquo;very good,&rdquo; and she felt that the incident had been handled appropriately. In addition, the hotel states on its registration form that safety deposit boxes are at the front desk.)&nbsp;&ldquo;It is a major problem,&rdquo; says Madeline Lee Bryer, a Manhattan attorney who has represented victims of hotel muggings, including a businesswoman from Canada who suffered a broken jaw in a push-in robbery at New York&rsquo;s Paramount Hotel eight years ago; the attacker was later caught and sent to jail, and Bryer sued the hotel for failing to provide adequate protection. (The suit was settled; Paramount did not respond to requests for comment.) Bryer says that hotels don&rsquo;t see security as a &ldquo;moneymaking proposition&rdquo; because there&rsquo;s little advantage to be gained by raising a subject that would only stir negative feelings on the part of their customers. &ldquo;They want people to be lulled into this false sense they&rsquo;re in the protective arms of this pleasant environment,&rdquo; she adds. &nbsp;Of course, that is exactly why thieves prey on hotel guests; it&rsquo;s hard to imagine a more tempting target than a group of people uprooted from their familiar surroundings, trying to relax or distracted by travel hassles, many of them carrying valuables. The hotel industry, for its part, says they address security, but discreetly. &ldquo;A lot of hotels added more security after 9/11; it is just that many customers don&rsquo;t see it,&rdquo; says Joe McInerney, head of the American Hotel &amp; Lodging Association in Washington. With a few exceptions, such as Las Vegas&rsquo; Bellagio, where guards inspect your key before you enter an elevator, hotels prefer their security to be invisible. Common measures include posting security cameras in more locations, especially in corridors and near elevators; positioning uniformed and plainclothes security guards in public areas and at entrances, and performing more intensive background checks on employees. (Electronic key cards have made it harder for unauthorized persons to enter guest rooms but doesn&rsquo;t necessarily protect against inside jobs.) &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t want consumers to think they are in an armed camp,&rdquo; McInerney says.Travelers are often surprised by the lack of sympathy they encounter when they report a crime. Jane Eccles, an artist who was traveling last year with her consultant husband, says she was rebuffed when several hundred dollars worth of jewelry was stolen from her room at a conference center in Princeton, New Jersey. The couple had packed their bags and left them in the room while they grabbed breakfast in the dining room. When Eccles opened her suitcase shortly after leaving the property, she discovered the theft and immediately contacted the hotel, but was told there was no evidence that anyone other than the guests had entered the room. &ldquo;They said they were covered, and that was it,&rdquo; Eccles says. Bryer says that most state laws appear to back the lodging industry in disclaiming responsibility for theft. Moreover, some hotel sources say that if they were always to accept their guests&rsquo; versions of events, they could open themselves to a wave of false claims and insurance fraud. Some hotels are making security a priority; Marriott is introducing automatic dead bolts at many of its properties and has a policy of investigating &ldquo;any and all thefts&rdquo; against guests, says Roger Conner, a spokesman for the chain. He claims these measures and the secure keys have dramatically reduced guest-room theft, although he would not provide actual figures. We might be left in the dark, but avoid being left in the lurch with these tips on security. 
      
  
   
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<item rdf:about="http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/seat-2B/2008/09/02/Fall-Business-Travel-Issues?tid=true">
<title>What Not to Worry About</title>
<link>http://www.portfolio.com/business-travel/seat-2B/2008/09/02/Fall-Business-Travel-Issues?tid=true</link>
<description><![CDATA[Business travelers come by paranoia legitimately. The airlines unabashedly rig their fare structures to guarantee we pay the most and often get stuck in the middle seat. Hotels deftly stack their rate cards to ensure we pay the highest rate and often end up with the room nearest the noisy ice machine.   I would never suggest that we business travelers abandon this well-earned paranoia, but I do think there are some things we need not worry about this fall. It simply won't be as bleak as the ill-informed talking heads have lead us to believe.  Don't Sweat the Prices All year the &quot;experts&quot; have warned about massive and imminent airfare increases. And at least on the surface, there was plenty to worry about. Airlines were unprepared when oil jumped from last summer's $75-a-barrel price to this spring's highs around $150 a barrel. And with fuel accounting for 40 percent of costs, Delta chief executive Richard Anderson's claim that fares would need to rise 20 percent seemed chilling but rational. And fares have risen&mdash;at least a dozen times since January.  But looking at the surface leads to superficial analysis. The experts forgot that airlines&mdash;and airfares&mdash;don't exist in a vacuum. As fares rose, Americans stopped booking vacations they couldn't afford. And business travelers cut flying to match the needs of their own businesses, which were negatively impacted by skyrocketing energy prices.  The result: As I predicted in a June column, airlines had to slash some fares at the last minute to fill seats. So the prices travelers paid actually rose much more slowly and much more modestly than the bloviators expected. In July, for example, Continental Airlines said its RASM (revenue per available seat mile flown) was just 4 percent higher than in July 2007. The Air Transport Association, the airline trade group, pegs the average year-over-year price increase at about 7 percent. Of course, the problem with averages is that no traveler pays the &quot;average&quot; price. I don't doubt that business fares have risen faster than leisure fares&mdash;paranoia strikes deep, you know&mdash;but year-over-year airline-revenue figures prove that prices aren't rising precipitously.   The slowdown in air travel has affected hotels and resorts too. And as we discussed in a recent column, the lodging gravy train has stalled. Hotels are discounting lustily to keep their existing rooms filled and put heads on beds on the new properties that continue to open. &nbsp; Don't Sweat the Fees Airlines have piled on the fees this year and it has led to the virtual &quot;unbundling&quot; of airfares. Many items once included as part of the basic fare are now &agrave; la carte options. But many of the new fees are for options that business travelers don't use or don't like anyway. Why worry about fees for checking a second bag when surveys say that about 80 percent of us don't check a second bag? And do you really mourn the loss of &quot;free&quot; food and snacks in coach? Most of us despise that slop anyway. Airports now have a vigorous food and beverage scene, so buy before you fly.  But one new fee might matter: Four large airlines (American, United, US Airways, and Northwest) now charge for checking a first bag. But they exempt elite and full-fare flyers like us. And they're fighting a rearguard action against three major carriers (Continental, Delta, and JetBlue) that refuse to levy a first-bag fee. If those three gain customers by keeping the first checked bag bundled in the basic fare, the other four will give way. Of course, the market is perfect: If Continental, Delta, and JetBlue don't gain market share, that means a first-bag fee doesn't bother us, so they'll add the charge too.  Don't Sweat the Capacity Cuts This week airlines begin what can only be called the Big Pulldown. Most will slash passenger capacity by about 10 percent compared to their flight schedules last fall. That has led to a frenzied spate of analysis claiming that there'll be a shortage of seats in the skies.   In a word: Baloney. Traffic is falling faster than airlines can trim capacity. In fact, the A.T.A. predicted a 6 percent decline in passengers over the Labor Day weekend, the last busy period of the summer season. Airline executives tell me their advance bookings for fall, especially for overseas travel, aren't living up to expectations. There will be plenty of seats to go around.   Don't Sweat Laptop Seizures The federal government says&mdash;and courts have so far agreed&mdash;that Customs agents have the right to seize and examine your laptop when you reenter the country. The laptop rule is based on settled law about the government's right to search baggage at the borders without suspicion of wrongdoing. This has infuriated many business travelers, who are paranoid (there's that word again) that the government will copy, store, and disseminate the data and information taken from confiscated laptops.  We can dispute the fine points of search-and-seizure rules, the rights of the individual versus a snoopy government, and the logic of equating a data-loaded laptop to a bag full of clothing. I'm all for fighting the power. Just make sure you don't have sensitive data on your laptop when you return from overseas. Upload it to an online storage site or a virtual private network, then wipe your hard drive clean.   The Fine Print&hellip; Despite its continued profitability thanks to efficient operations and savvy fuel-hedging strategies, Southwest Airlines has put the brakes on its growth. In fact, its winter 2009 schedule, released last week and effective in January, shows about 200 fewer flights a day. The reductions are mostly in flight frequencies. Only three routes have been completely dropped from Southwest's route map. Related LinksThe Last TabooWho Takes the Hit? Tips for a Sky-High Spring
  

   
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