American Airline’s parent company says that it will shed at least 13,000 jobs – which is roughly around 15 per cent of its workforce.

AMR wants to slash staff costs by 20 per cent in an attempt to bring down spending by $2bn while raising company revenue by $1bn per year. The parent, which was forced into filing for bankruptcy protection late last year, also wishes to make adjustments to staff pensions.

American Airlines 88,000 strong workforce is being represented by three unions that have understandably voiced their opposition to the changes. Negotiations with the three unions are to start shortly, confirmed AMR.

AMR lost $884m over 2011’s first nine month and disclosed $904m in losses for December. Since 2001, the company has seen in excess of $11bn slip through its fingers with Thomas W Horton, the chief executive, citing that changes are needed if AMR and American Airlines are to see their fortunes reversed.

The biggest cuts – of around 4,600 – will be among maintenance workers. Just behind them though are baggage handlers as 4,200 of them might be unemployed in the near future. Additionally, 2,300 flight attendants, 400 pilots, and 1,400 management employees could also be looking for new work.

AMR also wants union approval needed to drop its pension plans and then replace them with retirement accounts. The company stated on its website yesterday that it can no longer afford pension plans that see 130,000 former staff paid out every week.

A lawyer representing Costa Concordia passengers yesterday announced details of the $460 million class-action case that will be brought against the wrecked cruise ship’s owners.
 
The lawsuit comes just over two weeks since the cruise ship, which was owned and operated by Costa Cruise Lines, which is a Carnival Corp. affiliate, capsized on 13 January just off mainland Italy and spelled the deaths of 17 people. Proner & Proner’s Mitchell Proner, a Manhattan personal injury attorney, commented that several other international lawyers representing over 500 passengers will be joining him .

Proner announced the details of his clients’ civil lawsuit, which was filed in Florida yesterday while a press conference was taking place in Genoa, Italy. Proner called the initial settlement offer of $14,600 for both physical trauma and the loss of baggage insulting, adding that the company should be held responsible for the deaths it caused as it intentionally put its customers at risk.

Proner is joined by another New York law firm, namely Napoli Bern Ripka Shkolnik, which is noted for sealing compensation settlements for workers at Ground Zero who developed health problems related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. Proner & Proner’s website posted a statement that told of how it is still unknown whether or not US courts are to accept a class-action claim. 
 
Unlike in Italy, any accident victims filing a law suit in the US can recover punitive damages should they be able to prove egregious behaviour has been exhibited by the defendant acted. These damages can rise above the total amount of any actual losses, with US lawyers who can bring in cases sometimes awarded fees as high as 30 per cent for a recovery.

Any new Thames estuary airport would become the most dangerous hub in the UK due to the risks of a plane crashing down to land by a bird strike, it has been warned by aviation experts.

A special report, commissioned by ministers, found that there is risk of “aircraft loss” after risks of being struck by one or several birds ranged from a single plane in 100 years one in 300 years – figures that are higher than those of the other 10 UK airports that were studied.

High risk was calculated despite extensive work to try and make the area see as unattractive as possible for birds, which involved cutting down woodland, shooting them when necessary, draining ponds, and planting artificial grass.

The report added that even with management and mitigation measures of a world-class standard in place, it isn’t considered possible for risk to be reduced to any level similar to that currently experienced at fellow UK airports.

The experts’ view is to add new difficulties to the coalition government’s plans, with a fresh consultation on constructing a new hub in this area expected to be announced in March. The idea has been championed by Boris Johnson - London’s Conservative mayor.

Simon Buck, the British Air Transport Association’s chief executive, said that the risk of bird strike is only one concern there is over the site with another “conflict” with the flight paths for Amsterdam’s six-runway Schiphol airport.

A state of disaster has been declared in parts of Fiji’s largest island due to the flooding and landslides that killed six people while displacing thousands.

Government officials say that 3,500 people have had to be put up in temporary shelters. Fiji’s largest island, Viti Levu, is where the flooding has affected the most, which is why the state of disaster only applies to its western regions.

The rain, which has been going on since the weekend before last, has inundated roads while cutting water and power supplies of some communities. Fiji’s Disaster Management Office declared that Nadi Lautoka, Rakiraki, Ba, and Sigatoka are all in states of disaster.

Sharon Smith-Johns, the government’s permanent secretary of information, said that six people in total have already been reported dead by Wednesday. This amount is inclusive of a family of four as well as two farmers on Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, the latter of which was trying to rescue livestock.

Already, New Zealand has pledged $286,000 in initial flood aid that is immediately available to Fiji’s Red Cross. Murray McCully, the Foreign Minister, explained that his country is working close with relief agencies as well as neighbouring Australia, a country that is home to thousands of citizens that head to Fiji on holiday every year, and the French government.

Aberdeen airport announced on Wednesday that a multi-million pound investment plan to improve its terminal is about to take off.

The airport said that the project will help improve passenger facilities while providing more capacity. The hub plans to splash £4.25 million on projects this year and £45 million has been earmarked through to 2021, with plans also including the beginning of a £5 million expansion of the airport’s arrivals area, which will be carried out from now until 2019.

Additionally, there is a two-year plan costing £3 million that will boost capacity throughout the terminal while expanding the security search area. As if that weren’t enough, the grand opening of a new £750,000 car rental facility will take place in the near future.

In 2011, passenger numbers at Aberdeen airport were up by 11.5 per cent in 2011, as alleged by the CAA’s latest provisional figures. This made the hub the UK’s fastest-growing airport among those that handle in excess of 500,000 passengers per annum.

Derek Provan, the Airport managing director of the hub, told reporters that the aim is to carry on providing a high quality standard of service that can only be achieved by increasing capacity as recent passenger growth forecasts and the figures they have produced mean that new and modern facilities are needed.

Transport for London is apparently in the last stages of guaranteeing supply of Wi-Fi for over a hundred of its underground stations.

Tfl’s announcement of who the chosen bidder is was scheduled for the close of 2011, but it is now expected sometime at the start of spring. Gareth Powell, the director of Tfl’s strategy and service development, commented that London Underground is still preparing to install the required infrastructure while being on schedule to see the project through to completion as planned.

Powell added that the contract is going to be in place in order to leave plenty of time for the 2012 London Olympic Games. According to a TfL document, the Wi-Fi host will provide a portal for the service to deliver media rich content that is free of charge and tipped to include travel information, sports, entertainment, and news.
Additional data services and external site links might be subject to subscription fees.

The supplier will probably manage every aspect of this service, which includes billing users. Although it probably will be extended, it is expected that the contract will last for five years. While the Wi-Fi service will be available even in deep underground stations, it won’t be possible to access the internet on the actual tube trains themselves.

Trials of Wi-Fi access started at Charing Cross station in November 2010 and the reaction of underground passengers over several months was gauged.

The enormous cost of constructing a new Thames Valley airport will mean that airlines will pay at least seven times as much in landing fees when compared with current costs at Heathrow, according to an industry analyst.

Senior figures in the British airports sector spoke to The Sunday Telegraph and told them that the current cost of safely landing at Heathrow Airport for airlines is around £15 per passenger. This figure might rise to £100 a passenger for a new airport, in the wake of estimates that the proposed Thames estuary site might cost as much as £50bn, which is over four times the asset value of Heathrow Airport at £12bn. Many analysts have put the cost of constructing Thames estuary as high at £70bn.

Just last week, Downing Street signalled how keen it is to take a detailed look at plans to build a new hub to the east of London. Key sources have said that there is growing frustration with the Coalition Government, which was meant to announce results of its most recent analysis of the current aviation policy in March. This event now looks as though it will be nothing more than a rehearsal of the choices.

Should another round of consultation be announced on a Thames estuary airport, it is highly likely that any proposals won’t be scrutinised until 2013. The Mayor of London, the enigmatic Boris Johnson, has publicly backed an airport just off the coast of Kent coast with plans having also been put forward for one to be built on the Isle of Grain by Lord Foster.

A committee of MPs will investigate how Parliament’s Clock Tower – which is better known by the name Big Ben and is one of London’s most famous attractions or landmarks - can be stopped from tilting further, in the wake of surveyors finding that it is leaning.

Constructed back in the 19th century, the Palace of Westminster has also been suffering from cracking. A meeting will be held by the House of Commons Commission today and will discuss the problems. Imperial College’s Professor John Burland said that the lean shouldn’t become a big worry until at least 10,000 more years.

During their meeting, MPs are tipped to discuss the proposal to put the Palace of Westminster up for sale and assume new offices, although it is thought that this is incredibly unlikely to occur. Big Ben, or The Clock Tower, was completed in 1850 and, since then, the Jubilee underground line and a car park totalling five-floors have both been constructed.

Professor Burland, an expert on construction who oversaw the car park being built, told a radio programme that the lean was obvious to him years ago as measurements were made on it. Burland pointed out that there is presently nothing to worry about as all buildings lean a little.

The body of a female has been discovered on board Costa Concordia, the Italian cruise ship which ran aground then capsized a week ago.

The discovery brings the known death toll up to 12. The woman, donning a life jacket when she died, was found by deep sea divers on the Costa Concordia’s fourth deck. Twenty people remain missing after the ship, which had 4,200 people on board, hit a rock that was in shallow waters off Tuscany’s Giglio island on Friday 13 January.

The captain is currently being investigated in Italy for manslaughter charges, which he has denied. An unnamed police official told the media that the woman’s corpse was found at roughly 13:30 local time before then being taken to the mainland and that the authorities will have to use DNA testing to identify the victim due to her having spent a week in the sea.

Coastguard and navy divers continued their search over the weekend, blasting their way into areas of the vessel that were submerged by using explosives in what was an attempt to to find those still yet unaccounted for. On Friday though, the search had to be suspended after the Concordia shifted.

Coast Guard representative Cosimo Nicastro said that the body was discovered during a remarkably risky search of the ship’s evacuation meeting point, close to the rear. According to Nicastro, divers’ lines risked snagging as they made their way down a narrow corridor full of objects.

Skegness should find a new name and boost its image as a result of doing so, a tourism expert has insisted.

David Harper, of Leisure Property Services, commented that the town suffers from a bad reputation and is thought of as being a low quality resort. He said that it needs to be re-branded in order to attract the wealthier market of UK tourists and changing the name of the town would be the most cost effective way method of reinventing the seaside favourite.

Mr Harper said it needed to be re-branded to attract a wealthier market and changing its name would be a cost effective way of injecting fresh life into the coastal town. East Lindsey District Council has dismissed the idea while saying that the traditional British resort still has mass appeal.

Adam Grist, a local councillor, said that the very suggestion of changing the name is ridiculous and such an action will not solve all problems automatically. Grist added that people visit Skegness every summer in their thousands because it is a traditional UK resort that offers everything.

A representative of Skegness’ East Coast and Wolds Hospitality Association was in agreement with Mr Grist by saying that the idea of changing the name of the town he loves was absolutely crazy. He went on to conclude that Skegness and nearby Lincoln are the two main attractions in their part of England as well as being two well-recognised names.