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Expedia Inc. is starting the new year with a break-up, suspending sales of tickets for flights on American Airlines after the two sides were unable to resolve a commercial dispute.
Expedia’s Saturday announcement is the latest twist in the spat involving American and online giants that have revolutionized how travel is sold over the Internet. On Dec. 21, American yanked its fares from Chicago-based Orbitz Worldwide Inc. Get the full story »
A blizzard blanketing the East Coast this weekend has left thousands of fliers stranded at various airports across the country, including some at O’Hare International and Midway airports this morning.
As of 7:35 a.m., 130 flights at O’Hare had been canceled due to the East Coast weather, according to the Chicago Department of Aviation. At Midway, there were 20 flight cancellations.
Today’s cancellations came on top of the 150 flights grounded yesterday at the two airports.
Expedia is hiding pricing information for American Airlines flights on its Web sites in a display of solidarity with Chicago-based Orbitz Worldwide Inc., which is enmeshed in a contract dispute with the nation’s #3 carrier.
The online travel giants are warring with American over the airline’s attempts take greater control of the way it sells tickets and other services.
The new contract terms the Texas-based carrier seeks would drive down its costs and impose new technology on agencies like Orbitz and Expedia and the global clearinghouses that provide the ticket data they peddle over the Internet, analysts said. Get the full story »
Nearly 1.8 million passengers are expected to travel through Chicago’s airports during the Christmas holiday week.
Airlines are projecting that Thursday will be the busiest travel day at both O’Hare and Midway international airports, with nearly 190,000 passengers are expected at O’Hare and nearly 63,000 passengers at Midway.
Both airports are featuring live blues and jazz performances from 2 to 5 p.m. Get the full story »
A visualization of a proposed electric car station in Paris. (AP)
After its successful bike-sharing program, Paris is moving into higher gear, preparing to lend out 3,000 electric cars across the City of Light to fight air pollution.
City officials on Thursday chose a bid by French billionaire entrepreneur Vincent Bollore to run Autolib’, a new automobile-sharing program modeled on Paris’ successful, three-year-old bicycle-sharing program, Velib’. Get the full story »
Storied New York hotelier Ian Schrager says he is about to launch his next “fresh start,” kicking it off with an update of Chicago’s Ambassador East hotel.
The 64-year-old founder of the hip Morgans Hotel Group Co. and a co-owner of the former Studio 54 disco in Manhattan, plans to start two trendy hotel chains. One will cater to the luxury lifestyle and the other will be a more affordable take on hip, large-scale urban hotels. Get the full story »
Microsoft Corp. is hoping its Bing search engine can gain more ground on Google with a little more help from Facebook and its other Internet friends. As part of an extensive upgrade, Bing will feature more recommendations and other information from people’s social circles on Facebook to help distinguish its results from Google’s. Get the full story »
A post-bicentennial drop in tourism numbers reduced attendance by more than a third at some Lincoln sites in Illinois this year.Hotel stays also fell.
But tourism and historic-site managers say the fall-off from the 200th anniversary celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birth in 2009 was anticipated. They remain encouraged that numbers in most cases were ahead of 2008 Get the full story »
The sky appears to be the limit when it comes to the money airlines make by charging passengers to check luggage.
The 20 largest U.S. carriers collected $906.4 million in baggage-related revenue in the third quarter, a 23 percent jump from 2009 results, according to data released Monday by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Get the full story »
In this April 26, 2010 file photo, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, left, accompanied by. Sen. Christopher Dodd, second from left, get off an Amtrak train in Hartford, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File)
The Obama administration is taking $1.2 billion in high-speed rail money away from Ohio and Wisconsin and awarding it to other states, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Thursday.
Both Ohio and Wisconsin have elected incoming Republican governors who oppose the rail projects. So LaHood said he is awarding their money to rail projects in states that are eager to have it.
High-speed trains will not only improve transportation but reinvigorate manufacturing and put people back to work in jobs that pay well, LaHood predicted in a statement. Get the full story »
The government says October was the first month when no airplanes were stuck on the ground for more than three hours.
It’s the first month without tarmac delays since the government started collected data in 2008. Get the full story »
An RV makes its way over the Golden Gate Bridge the day before Thanksgiving. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
American families are ready to hitch up their trailers and tow the RV industry out of its worst stretch in nearly two decades.
The industry was driven into the ditch last year by the recession. Sales plunged, plants closed and thousands of jobs were cut as orders for recreational vehicles dropped to their worse level since 1991.
Now, RV makers such as Winnebago are starting to turn profits and have begun to hire. And dealers are ordering more RVs for their showrooms. Get the full story »
United Airlines ignored frequent-flier pleas to “save the tulip” this summer as it rolled out a new brand and paint scheme. But the Saul Bass-designed U could live on, at least on one of United’s Boeing 757 jets.
To celebrate its 85th anniversary, United plans to repaint one of its jets in a classic scheme, known as the livery in the airline business. Among the options: The “tulip,” paired with 1970s-style orange, red and blue stripes, a look that adorned United’s jets through the 1990s. Get the full story »
Chicago has nabbed a new piece of convention business, booking a 2013 global solar energy conference that is expected to draw more than 27,000 attendees to the city. Get the full story »
