Vermont lawmakers, governor spar in public, negotiate in private
06.05.10
“There is always time to do the right thing,” Douglas said, although the clock is winding down on the 2010 legislative session. Legislative leaders want to adjourn Saturday.
It was the second time this week Douglas called a news conference to criticize lawmakers’ tax choices. Tuesday he complained about a manufacturing tax break the Legislature plans to delay by two years for a savings of $1.7 million a year.
House Speaker Shap Smith, D-Morristown, defended the Legislature’s past and pending tax decisions, noting Douglas proposed the capital gains tax change enacted last year that he now wants to reverse.
Despite the tough talk on both sides, legislative leaders and the governor have been meeting to try to avoid the political blow-up that marred the end of the session a year ago.
Wednesday afternoon, a half-dozen legislative leaders slipped into the governor’s Statehouse office for talks, which Senate President Pro Tempore Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, later
JetAmerica , which started taking bookings for $9 flights with much fanfare in late May, was supposed to launch on July 13. They’ve now postponed the launch to Aug 14. The reason for the delay is a lack of landing and take-off time slots at Newark.
JetAmerica’s VP of Operations Brian Burling says that the FAA flip-flopped on the need for time slots. He says they initially indicated JetAmerica wouldn’t need slots, but after the FAA found that JetAmerica had sold over 20,000 tickets even before the first flight had taken off, they changed their stance and now JetAmerica is grounded until they get the slots.
Of course, this leaves the 6,486 JetAmerica passengers who had booked tickets for dates in-between July 13 and Aug 14 in the lurch. JetAmerica is now refunding all of them, and offering to waive reservation charges if they re-book. This is what happens when you book cheap airline tickets with an airline which has no planes or crew and exists only on paper.
In Europe, cheapskate carrier RyanAir wants to leave no doubt that they’ll do anything to keep the prices down – even if it means leaving customers without a way to check-in. Last month, RyanAir announced a 10 hour downtime for their website, citing a need for essential maintenance.
RyanAir is also phasing out airport check-in desks as part of it’s cost-cutting measures, which basically means passengers can only check-in online. Which, of course, they can’t do if the website is down. This kind of catch-22 situation wouldn’t happen if the airline in question wasn’t going wild trying to save a few more dollars in any way possible.
But China’s first private airline and budget carrier Spring Airlines aims to go where no airline has gone before – They’re planning to get modified planes from Airbus with bar stools and safety belts, instead of seats. The plan is to offer standing-room tickets, and cram in 40% more passengers per flight.
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![Vacation savings: Are we there yet? Marketplace]("http://nt1.ggpht.com/news/tbn/NYYDQxArF4Ex7M/6.jpg")
MarketplaceVacation savings: Are we there yet?MarketplacePauline Frommer, of the travel book Frommer's, writes a series of budget travel books. We asked her to give us the skinny on where the good vacation deals and more »
