While praising the Obama administration for new actions designed to restore confidence and liquidity in small-business lending, ASTA reiterated an earlier call for a program to allow the Small Business Administration (SBA) to lend directly to small businesses.
Following Air France-KLM’s announcement on Jan. 12 and the approval of the competition authorities, the Air France-KLM Group has completed its acquisition of a 25 percent stake in Alitalia through the subscription to a reserved capital increase for an amount of some 323 million euros.
For the week ending Feb. 18, Hawaii hotel occupancy figures stood at 75 percent, down 2 percentage points from the same period last year. Average room rates for the state, however, were significantly lower, sinking 12.5 percent, to $180, compared with 2008.
Accor Asia Pacific is on record as showing faith in the long term tourist potential of Thailand, which has been rocked back on its heels by domestic crises and the worldwide economic downturn. It is also putting its money where its mouth is with a significant slate of Thailand hotel projects.
Virgin America reported its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2008. Despite fuel costs and a challenging economic climate in 2008, the new airline reported strong and steadily growing unit revenue, significant cash on-hand, and strong load factors in the latter part of 2008. The airline ended the quarter with $68 million in cash.
Lufthansa said it almost matched last year’s results by posting operating profit of around 1.35 billion euros. The group profit was posted at 599 million euros; last year’s figure was 1.66 billion euros, but it also included 585 million euros of profit from extraordinary items.