low cost carrier

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pages: 278 words: 83,504

Boeing Versus Airbus: The Inside Story of the Greatest International Competition in Business by John Newhouse

Airbus A320, airline deregulation, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Build a better mousetrap, corporate governance, demand response, low cost airline, low cost carrier, MITM: man-in-the-middle, upwardly mobile

Over time, the A320 gradually gained the advantage because it is a newer airplane and, for various reasons, increasingly in favor with low-cost carriers. That is important, because those carriers, plus various leasing companies, are buying the new airplanes. The strapped legacy carriers are buying very little new equipment. Instead, some of them are cutting back. Well before reforming its fare structure, Delta decided to delay the delivery of 10 new Boeing aircraft and cancel options for 113 others. Some of the low-cost carriers are more austere than others. There is a spectrum of passenger comfort and services. JetBlue, with reserved seating and seats with monitors showing twenty-four channels of direct satellite TV, lies at the gentler end.

Both are exceptionally successful, having exceeded the most optimistic forecasts of their respective companies. The 737 is older and has been steadily improved over the years. But the A320, a newer, slightly larger, and more comfortable aircraft, is outselling the 737, not least in the low-cost market that Boeing had monopolized. In December 2004, the surge in orders for A320’s from low-cost carriers caused Boeing to shake up its sales force and replace its chief salesman, Toby Bright. The biggest revenue earners are airplanes with 200 to 300 seats. For many years, Boeing had this so-called middle market largely to itself with the 757, a long, single-aisle airplane, and the double-aisle 767.

The stakes could hardly be higher, especially for Airbus. It had begun to take too much for granted. FOR MOST of the past twenty years, a tooth-and-claw battle for the single-aisle-airplane market has held center stage in the Airbus-Boeing saga. It set Airbus’s A320 family against Boeing’s 737’s. The success of low-cost carriers such as Southwest and JetBlue in the States, along with easyJet and others in Europe, raised the stakes. For Boeing, an especially bad patch began in 1998, when British Airways, until then an unswervingly loyal Boeing customer, decided against the 737 and instead bought fifty-nine Airbus A320 and A319 aircraft, with options for fifty-nine more.


pages: 141 words: 40,979

The Little Book That Builds Wealth: The Knockout Formula for Finding Great Investments by Pat Dorsey

Airbus A320, barriers to entry, business process, call centre, creative destruction, credit crunch, discounted cash flows, intangible asset, knowledge worker, late fees, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Network effects, pets.com, price anchoring, risk tolerance, risk/return, rolodex, shareholder value, Stewart Brand

This generally does happen eventually, but it can take a lot longer than one might expect. It’s worth understanding why that often takes a fair amount of time, during which the originator of the low-cost process can make a lot of money. I won’t beat a very dead horse by going over the process-based cost advantages enjoyed by Dell and low-cost carriers like Southwest Airlines. We’ve all heard both stories a million times. Dell cut out distributors, sold direct to buyers, and kept inventory very low by building personal computers (PCs) to order. Southwest flew only one type of jet, minimized expensive ground time (fast turns, in airline jargon), and cultivated an employee culture that rewarded thrift.

Southwest still has a cheaper cost structure than any of the majors—not exactly a hard thing to do, really—but it faces competitors like JetBlue and AirTran that have been able to get access to newer planes and cheap slots at second-tier airports. Also, the declining financial health of the majors made it easier for low-cost airlines to gain scale—the big airlines were struggling so hard to stay afloat that they could not spare the resources to crush upstarts. So, new low-cost carriers have been able to copy important parts of Southwest’s secret sauce and match it on cost. Dell, meanwhile, is still the lowest-cost manufacturer of PCs, but its advantage has shrunk considerably as competitors like Hewlett-Packard have retooled their businesses to cut costs, and high-cost operators like IBM have sold their PC businesses to more savvy owners like Lenovo.

Perhaps my very favorite example of a well-regarded CEO being humbled by brutal industry dynamics is David Neeleman at JetBlue. Neeleman had an impeccable track record when he founded JetBlue. Before that he had started up the only airline attractive enough to be purchased by the famously acquisition-shy Southwest Airlines, and then he helped launch a low-cost carrier in Canada while waiting for his noncompete agreement with Southwest to expire. When JetBlue launched, Neeleman’s planes were brand-new and featured in-seat satellite TV and leather seats. Because new planes invariably have lower costs than older planes—they need less maintenance and they’re more efficient—JetBlue’s financials looked great just after going public, with 17 percent operating margins and a solid 20 percent return on equity.


Central Europe Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Defenestration of Prague, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Bilbao, illegal immigration, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Kickstarter, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, offshore financial centre, Peter Eisenman, place-making, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Rubik’s Cube, Skype, trade route, urban renewal, white picket fence, young professional

Airlines National carriers take you to and from a host of world cities, and a web of low-cost carrier routes connects across Western Europe. The rule of thumb is the further east you go, the fewer regional airports there are. Central European national airlines (Slovakia has none): Adria Airways (JP; www.adria-airways.com) Slovenia Austrian Airlines (OS; www.aua.com) ČSA (OK; www.czechairlines.com) Czech Republic LOT Polish Airlines (LO; www.lot.com) Lufthansa (LH; www.lufthansa.com) Germany Malév Hungarian Airlines (MA; www.malev.hu) Swiss International Air Lines (LX; www.swiss.com) The following low-cost carriers offer the biggest selection of flights to and from Central Europe: Air Berlin (AB; www.airberlin.de) Germany-based, serves Western Europe (including Italy, Spain, Austria), North America and Southeast Asia.

GETTING AROUND Air If you’re travelling without checked luggage, booking at least two weeks ahead and willing to travel to alternative airports, European air flights can be quite affordable. Both national and low-cost carriers fly within the region; check the prices of both. For a list of major airlines Click here ; for carriers with more limited service, see the specific destination chapters. Germanwings and Air Berlin have the most extensive intra–Central European networks. Note that smaller nations, such as Hungary, have no internal flights. WHAT’S THAT BAG WORTH TO YA? Beware when booking low-cost carrier seats; extra costs add up super fast. Most charge fees for checked luggage and impose strict weight limits with oversize penalties.

Information The tourist office (www.freiburg.de; Rathausplatz 2-4; 8am-8pm Mon-Fri, 9.30am-5pm Sat, 10am-noon Sun Jun-Sep, 8am-6pm Mon-Fri, 9.30am-2.30pm Sat, 10am-noon Sun Oct-May) is well stocked with hiking and cycling maps to the region. Getting There & Around Freiburg shares EuroAirport (www.euroairport.com) with Basel (Switzerland) and Mulhouse (France). It buzzes with low-cost carriers. The Airport Bus (www.freiburger-reisedienst.de) runs almost every hour (adult/child €20/10, 55 minutes) . Fast trains connect Freiburg to Basel (€23, 45 minutes, hourly) and north to Frankfurt (€61, two hours, hourly) and beyond. Cut across the Rhine to France’s cute Colmar.


pages: 269 words: 74,955

The Crash Detectives: Investigating the World's Most Mysterious Air Disasters by Christine Negroni

Air France Flight 447, Airbus A320, Captain Sullenberger Hudson, Charles Lindbergh, Checklist Manifesto, computer age, crew resource management, crowdsourcing, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Richard Feynman, South China Sea, Tenerife airport disaster, Thomas Bayes, US Airways Flight 1549

He had a guaranteed job flying for his nation’s flag carrier, which served sixty destinations around the globe and operated the Airbus A380, the world’s largest airliner. His professional future was full of promise and so was his personal life. During cadet training he met and fell in love with a fellow student, Nadira Ramli, who became a first officer with AirAsia, a Kuala Lumpur–based low-cost carrier. Ramli, one year younger than Fariq, was so charming that she was selected by AirAsia to represent the company on a public relations and marketing campaign that included a drive across China in 2012. In March 2014, Fariq and Ramli were engaged to be married. While Zaharie was out of the cockpit, it would be Fariq’s job to tune the radio to the Ho Chi Minh air traffic control frequency.

From January to October of the following year, he underwent psychiatric treatment for reactive depression that a German medical examiner told the FAA had been triggered by excessive demands. By 2010, Lubitz was considered fit to continue his training, and so he did: ground school in Bremen, and then flight school in Phoenix, followed by jet training back in Bremen and a stint as a flight attendant. In 2013 he became a first officer on Lufthansa’s low-cost carrier GermanWings. In the spring of 2015, Lubitz would commandeer his own flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf and fly it into a mountain, killing himself and 149 others. The thirty-four-year-old captain, Patrick Sondenheimer, had left the cockpit to go to the bathroom after leveling the plane at thirty-eight thousand feet.


pages: 315 words: 99,065

The Virgin Way: Everything I Know About Leadership by Richard Branson

barriers to entry, call centre, carbon footprint, Celtic Tiger, clean water, collective bargaining, Costa Concordia, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, friendly fire, glass ceiling, illegal immigration, index card, inflight wifi, Lao Tzu, low cost airline, low cost carrier, M-Pesa, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, Nelson Mandela, Northern Rock, profit motive, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Tesla Model S, trade route, zero-sum game

Michael O’Leary, CEO of the Irish airline Ryanair, once described his ideal customer as ‘someone with a pulse and a credit card’ and in the same ‘Lunch with the Financial Times’ interview referred to the British Airports Authority as the ‘Evil Empire’ and the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority as a bunch of ‘cretins and twerps’. While nobody can question Ryanair’s incredible financial success (last time I checked the low-cost carrier had built a market cap of over $13 billion), being voted Europe’s ‘least liked’ airline by TripAdvisor subscribers is something that would not sit well with me no matter how good the bottom line looks. American property magnate Donald Trump is another controversial character who seems to be either loved or hated by the consumer and is perhaps most famous for his ‘You’re fired’ line, something he seems to delight in telling people on his TV show The Apprentice.

If you were born after 1960, Freddie’s name maybe doesn’t ring a bell as his ground-breaking Laker Airways was driven out of business in 1982, and even more sadly Freddie died in 2006 at the way-too-early age of eighty-three. A lifelong entrepreneur par excellence, Freddie was one of the greatest innovators of twentieth-century aviation and an utterly inspirational human being. Freddie invented what today we’d call a ‘low-cost carrier’ and in the process, made transatlantic air travel an affordable reality for a vast new cross-section of consumers. He was a swashbuckling hero whose larger-than-life personality, street smarts and indomitable good humour made him a standout leader in what at the time was a moribund industry desperately in need of someone to take it in a new direction.


pages: 124 words: 31,474

Berlitz: Norway Pocket Guide by Berlitz

low cost airline, low cost carrier

The quickest way to the centre of Oslo is the Gardermoen Line Airport Express Train, Flytoget, taking 19 minutes and running six times an hour to the Central Station. There are also regular commuter trains operated by Norwegian State Railway, airport coaches and a taxi rank outside the airport (www.oslo.no). Ryanair and other low-cost carriers fly into Torp airport, near Sandefjord, 110km (68 miles) south of Oslo. Coaches are laid on to coincide with the flights and take approximately 2–2½ hours. There are also trains to Sandefjord with a bus shuttle to the airport (www.torp.no). Bergen Flesland is 20km (12 miles) south of Bergen.


Switzerland by Damien Simonis, Sarah Johnstone, Nicola Williams

Albert Einstein, bank run, car-free, clean water, Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Bilbao, haute couture, haute cuisine, indoor plumbing, Kickstarter, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Nelson Mandela, offshore financial centre, the market place, trade route, young professional

Its translucent skin looks best when lit up, which only happens during games, every week or so. Take tram No 14 to get there. Getting There & Away AIR EuroAirport (%061 325 31 11; www.euroairport.com) serves Basel (as well as Mulhouse, France and Freiburg, Germany). Located 5km north in France, it has several routes to London on Swiss International Air Lines and low-cost carrier easyJet, with direct flights to many continental cities, including Alicante, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Brussels, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Madrid, Naples, Paris and Rome. BOAT An enjoyable, if slow, way to travel to/from Basel is via boat along the Rhine. The landing stage is between Johanniterbrücke and Dreirosenbrücke.

The two main scheduled carriers are British Airways (% 0845-773 3377; www.ba.com) and Swiss International Air Lines (%0845-601 0956; www.swiss.com), which both have services leaving from Heathrow and London City airports. Ticino carrier Darwin Airline (%+41 (0) 800 177 177 international toll free; www.darwin-airline.com) flies from London City Airport (to Bern and Lugano only). Several low-cost carriers travel between the UK and Switzerland, including easyJet (%0870-600 0000; www.easyjet.com) and Helvetic (%020 7026 3464; www.helvetic.com). Note that if you travel Air Berlin (%0870 738 8880; www.air LAND Bus Eurolines (www.eurolines.com), via local operator Alsa+Eggman (%0900 573 747 per min Sfr1.50, Geneva%022 716 91 10, Zürich%043 366 64 30; www .alsa-eggmann.ch), operates services on about 35 Continental Europe ROAD TOLLS The number of low-cost flights has mushroomed in recent years.

Note that if you travel Air Berlin (%0870 738 8880; www.air LAND Bus Eurolines (www.eurolines.com), via local operator Alsa+Eggman (%0900 573 747 per min Sfr1.50, Geneva%022 716 91 10, Zürich%043 366 64 30; www .alsa-eggmann.ch), operates services on about 35 Continental Europe ROAD TOLLS The number of low-cost flights has mushroomed in recent years. If you book very early – and are lucky – you might find flights for as little as €22 each way (plus taxes). Air Berlin (%www.airberlin.com) flies to Zürich from dozens of destinations in Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal. Beware that you need to book very early with this particular low-cost carrier to get the best deal. easyJet (www.easyjet.com; France %08-25 08 25 There’s a one-off charge of Sfr40 to use Swiss motorways and semi-motorways, identified by green signs. The charge is payable at the border (in cash, including euros) or from Swiss tourist offices abroad (see p322). The sticker (vignette) you receive upon paying the tax can also be bought at post offices and petrol stations.


pages: 281 words: 47,243

Tuscany Road Trips by Duncan Garwood, Paula Hardy, Robert Landon, Nicola Williams

call centre, car-free, haute couture, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Skype

Vatican (www.vatican.va) The Vatican’s website. 8 Getting There & Away AIR Rome’s main international airport, Leonardo da Vinci, better known as Fiumicino, is on the coast 30km west of the city. The much smaller Ciampino Airport (06 6 59 51; www.adr.it/ciampino), 15km southeast of the city centre, is the hub for European low-cost carrier Ryanair. MUSEUM DISCOUNT CARDS Serious museum-goers should consider: Classic Roma Pass (€36; valid for three days) Provides free admission to two museums or sites, as well as reduced entry to extra sites, unlimited city transport and discounted entry to other exhibitions and events. 48-hour Roma Pass (€28; valid for 48 hours) Gives free admission to one museum or site and then as per the Classic pass.


Germany by Andrea Schulte-Peevers

Albert Einstein, bank run, Berlin Wall, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, computer age, credit crunch, Donald Trump, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Frank Gehry, glass ceiling, Google Earth, haute couture, haute cuisine, Honoré de Balzac, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Kepler, Kickstarter, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Mikhail Gorbachev, New Urbanism, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Eisenman, place-making, post-work, ride hailing / ride sharing, sensible shoes, Skype, trade route, urban planning, urban renewal, V2 rocket, white picket fence

There’s a regular flea market (Hohen Ufer; 8am-4pm Sat) behind the Historisches Museum, along the Leine River Canal near Die Nanas. Return to beginning of chapter Getting There & Away AIR Hanover Airport (HAJ; 977 1223; www.hannover-airport.de) has many connections, including Lufthansa ( 0180-380 3803), and the low-cost carriers Air Berlin ( 01805-737 800; www.airberlin.com) to/from London-Stansted and TuiFly ( 01805-757 510; www.tuifly.com) to/from Newcastle in Great Britain. The S-Bahn (S5) takes 18 minutes from the airport to the Hauptbahnhof (€2.80). CAR & MOTORCYCLE Nearby autobahns run to Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt and Berlin, with good connections to Bremen, Cologne, Amsterdam and Brussels.

If you follow Grosse Gildewart south, it becomes Rolandsmauer, where you find Lagerhalle ( 338 740; www.lagerhalle-osnabrueck.de; Rolandsmauer 26; 8pm-1am Mon, 6pm-1am Tue-Thu, 6pm-2am Fri & Sat, 9.30am-11pm Sun; ), a culture venue, cinema and bar with everything from readings through film to live jazz or rock. Cultcha seekers of all ages simply drink, snack or play pool here, too. Outside is a board listing other places to go to in Heger-Tor-Viertel, inviting exploration of the quarter. Return to beginning of chapter Getting There & Away The low-cost carrier Air Berlin (www.airberlin.com) is among those with services to Münster- Osnabrück airport (FMO; www.flughafen.fmo.de). The airport is 30km southwest of the centre, and reached by Schnellbus X150 (€9, 40 minutes), which leaves the airport almost hourly between 3.30am and 11pm Monday to Friday, from 8.10am Saturday and from 10am Sunday.

Return to beginning of chapter GETTING THERE & AWAY Air Bremen’s airport ( 559 50; www.airport-bremen.de) is about 3.5km south of the centre and has flights to destinations in Germany and Europe. Airline offices here include Air Berlin ( 0421-552 035) and Lufthansa Airlines ( 01803-803 803). Low-cost carrier RyanAir (www.ryanair.com) flies to Edinburgh and London Stansted. Return to beginning of chapter Boat Hal Över Schreiber Reederei ( 338 989; www.hal-oever.de, Martinianleger, Schlachte 2) operates scheduled services along the Weser between April and September. Boats from Bremen to Bremerhaven (one-way/return €14.80/23.80, 3½ hours), with numerous stops en route, depart at 8.30am every Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, and 9.30am on Sunday.


Southeast Asia on a Shoestring Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

active transport: walking or cycling, airport security, Alfred Russel Wallace, anti-communist, British Empire, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, clean water, clockwatching, colonial rule, Google Earth, haute cuisine, indoor plumbing, Kickstarter, large denomination, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Mason jar, megacity, period drama, Skype, South China Sea, spice trade, superstar cities, sustainable-tourism, trade route, urban sprawl, white picket fence, women in the workforce

Tourism Malaysia (www.tourismmalaysia.gov.my) KL Sentral ( 2274 5823; 9am-6pm); Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA; 8776 5651; International Arrival Hall, Sepang); Putra World Trade Centre ( 2615 8188; Level 17, 45 Jln Tun Ismail; 9am-6pm Mon-Sat) Getting There & Away Kuala Lumpur is Malaysia’s principal international arrival gateway and it forms the crossroads for domestic bus, train and taxi travel. Air For details of international airlines, Click here. Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA; 8777 8888; www.klia.com.my; Pengrus Besar) is the main airport, 75km south of the city centre at Sepang. AirAsia ( 8775 4000; www.airasia.com) flights arrive and depart from the nearby Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT; 8777 8888; www.lcct.com.my), while Firefly ( 03-7845 4543; www.fireflyz.com.my) and Berjaya Air ( 2145 2828; www.berjaya-air.com) flights use Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport ( 7845 8382) in Subang, about 20km west of the city centre. Boat Ferries sail to Tanjung Balai on Sumatra (one way RM145, 3½ hours, 11am Monday to Saturday) in Indonesia from Pelabuhan Klang (Port Klang), accessible by KTM Komuter train from KL Sentral or by public bus (RM3.50) from Klang bus stand by Pasar Seni LRT station.

If you have more time than money, catch the Airport Coach ( 8787 3894; www.airportcoach.com.my; one way/return RM10/18) to KL Sentral (one hour); it can also take you onwards to any central KL hotel from KLIA and pick up for the return journey for a round-trip total of RM25. The bus stand is clearly signposted inside the terminal. Taxis from KLIA operate on a fixed-fare coupon system. Purchase a coupon from a counter at the arrival hall and use it to pay the driver. Standard taxis cost RM67.10. Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) Skybus (www.skybus.com.my; one-way RM9) and Aerobus (one-way RM8) depart every 15 minutes from 4.30am to 12.45am and take an hour. From LCCT, prepaid taxis charge RM62 to Chinatown or Jln Bukit Bintang (50% more from midnight to 6am). Buy your coupon at the desk near the arrivals hall exit.

A shuttle bus (P20; 7am-10pm) links the four terminals. * * * Air Airports & Airlines Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA; Code MNL; 02-877 1109) The country’s recently upgraded flagship airport is in flux – see the boxed text below for important arrival/departure information regarding terminals. The Philippines’ primary low-cost carrier, Cebu Pacific, serves an ever-growing list of Southeast Asian cities, including Bangkok, Brunei, Jakarta, Kota Kinabalu, Kuala Lumpur, Saigon and Singapore. The other low-cost airlines flying to/from NAIA are local carrier Zest Air, Singapore’s Jetstar Asia and Tiger Airways. The country’s flagship carrier, Philippine Airlines (PAL), also serves many Southeast Asian destinations.


pages: 267 words: 72,552

Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, Thomas Ramge

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Air France Flight 447, Airbnb, Alvin Roth, Atul Gawande, augmented reality, banking crisis, basic income, Bayesian statistics, Bear Stearns, bitcoin, blockchain, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, Cass Sunstein, centralized clearinghouse, Checklist Manifesto, cloud computing, cognitive bias, conceptual framework, creative destruction, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ford paid five dollars a day, Frederick Winslow Taylor, fundamental attribution error, George Akerlof, gig economy, Google Glasses, information asymmetry, interchangeable parts, invention of the telegraph, inventory management, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, job automation, job satisfaction, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, labor-force participation, land reform, lone genius, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Marc Andreessen, market bubble, market design, market fundamentalism, means of production, meta-analysis, Moneyball by Michael Lewis explains big data, multi-sided market, natural language processing, Network effects, Norbert Wiener, offshore financial centre, Parag Khanna, payday loans, peer-to-peer lending, Peter Thiel, Ponzi scheme, prediction markets, price anchoring, price mechanism, purchasing power parity, random walk, recommendation engine, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, Sam Altman, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, six sigma, smart grid, smart meter, Snapchat, statistical model, Steve Jobs, technoutopianism, The Future of Employment, The Market for Lemons, The Nature of the Firm, transaction costs, universal basic income, William Langewiesche, Y Combinator

Of course, it’s important to understand not only whether a given industry sector has efficiency opportunities but also whether a particular firm, by focusing on efficiency, can improve its relative position. Most traditional airlines may recognize their inefficiencies and see the advantages of the low-cost carrier model exemplified by JetBlue and Ryanair, but they lack the ability to reform themselves due to a variety of factors, from existing obligations to ossified organizational structures. The second important factor is time. Relative efficiency improvements almost always result in an advantage that’s only temporary as other firms catch up.


pages: 219 words: 15,438

The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America by Warren E. Buffett, Lawrence A. Cunningham

buy and hold, compensation consultant, compound rate of return, corporate governance, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, diversified portfolio, dividend-yielding stocks, fixed income, George Santayana, index fund, intangible asset, invisible hand, large denomination, low cost airline, low cost carrier, oil shock, passive investing, price stability, Ronald Reagan, Tax Reform Act of 1986, the market place, transaction costs, Yogi Berra, zero-coupon bond

In earlier years, these life-threatening costs posed few problems. Airlines were then protected from competition by regulation, and carriers could absorb high costs because they could pass them along by way of fares that were also high. When deregulation came along, it did not immediately change the picture: The capacity of low-cost carriers was so small that the high-cost lines could, in large part, maintain their existing fare structures. During this period, with the longer-term problems largely invisible but slowly metastasizing, the costs that were nonsustainable became further embedded. As the seat capacity of the low-cost operators expanded, their fares began to force the old-line, high-cost airlines to cut their own.


pages: 280 words: 82,393

Conflicted: How Productive Disagreements Lead to Better Outcomes by Ian Leslie

Atul Gawande, Ben Horowitz, Berlin Wall, call centre, different worldview, double helix, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Isaac Newton, longitudinal study, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Mark Zuckerberg, medical malpractice, meta-analysis, Nelson Mandela, Paul Graham, Silicon Valley, Socratic dialogue, the scientific method, The Wisdom of Crowds, zero-sum game

Scholars who study organisations have found that the worst, most unproductive workplace cultures are riddled with passive aggression. That’s why the most successful firms make a determined effort to get their internal conflicts out into the open. Carefully managed, conflict can bring co-workers closer together. Southwest Airlines might just be the most successful airline in history. In 2019, the Texas-based low-cost carrier celebrated its forty-sixth consecutive year of profitability, a unique record in a volatile industry. Southwest’s success is often explained with reference to its charismatic former CEO, Herb Kelleher, who co-founded the airline in 1967. Kelleher, who died in 2019, was a man of unquenchable bonhomie and he created a corporate culture in his image: Southwest staff are famous for their conviviality and quirky humour.


pages: 726 words: 210,048

Hard Landing by Thomas Petzinger, Thomas Petzinger Jr.

airline deregulation, buy and hold, centralized clearinghouse, Charles Lindbergh, collective bargaining, cross-subsidies, desegregation, Donald Trump, feminist movement, index card, low cost airline, low cost carrier, low skilled workers, Marshall McLuhan, means of production, mutually assured destruction, Network effects, offshore financial centre, oil shock, Ponzi scheme, postindustrial economy, price stability, profit motive, Ralph Nader, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, strikebreaker, the medium is the message, The Predators' Ball, Thomas L Friedman, union organizing, yield management, zero-sum game

Likewise, Southwest’s service, though stripped down and basic, was impeccably consistent and iridescently friendly. Crandall was concerned to learn that some businesses had begun requiring employees to travel at the lowest fare available, regardless of the level of service it required them to endure. Of all these low-cost carriers, People Express was, in early 1985, the greatest threat by far. But People Express was also perhaps the most vulnerable. Barbara Amster of the American pricing department considered People Express “the guys with the Southwest Airlines philosophy but without the brains of Southwest.” More aptly, perhaps, Don Burr and People Express had all the great ideas of Herb Kelleher and Southwest Airlines but lacked their discipline.

Crandall had not forgotten: Crandall 4/23/93 interview. 18. nearly 1,500 departures: “Revenue Control: Mining Gold at the Margin,” by Samuel M. Fuchs, Airline Executive, Jan. 1987. 19. assigned to Barbara R. Amster: Amster 4/29/93 interview. 20. had to be eradicated: Crandall 4/23/93 interview; “American on the Offensive,” Financial World, Feb. 20, 1985; “American Tries to Muscle In on the Low-Cost Carriers,” by Reggi Ann Dubin, BW, Feb. 4, 1985. 21. Crandall was concerned: Crandall remarks to 1985 Fall Planning Conference, American Airlines, draft dated Sept. 26, 1985. 22. “brains of Southwest”: Amster 4/29/93 interview. 23. “devised the fare”: Carty 4/29/93 interview. 24. new pricing strategy: “American Airlines Slashes Fares on Many Routes; Industry Stock Prices Slip as Rival Carriers Follow,” by Laurie P.


pages: 400 words: 88,647

Frugal Innovation: How to Do Better With Less by Jaideep Prabhu Navi Radjou

3D printing, additive manufacturing, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, barriers to entry, Baxter: Rethink Robotics, Bretton Woods, business climate, business process, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, cloud computing, collaborative consumption, collaborative economy, Computer Numeric Control, connected car, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, disruptive innovation, Elon Musk, financial exclusion, financial innovation, global supply chain, IKEA effect, income inequality, industrial robot, intangible asset, Internet of things, job satisfaction, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, late fees, Lean Startup, low cost airline, low cost carrier, M-Pesa, Mahatma Gandhi, megacity, minimum viable product, more computing power than Apollo, new economy, payday loans, peer-to-peer lending, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, precision agriculture, race to the bottom, reshoring, risk tolerance, Ronald Coase, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, six sigma, smart grid, smart meter, software as a service, standardized shipping container, Steve Jobs, supply-chain management, TaskRabbit, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, The Nature of the Firm, transaction costs, Travis Kalanick, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, women in the workforce, X Prize, yield management, Zipcar

Such business models include: software as a service (SaaS) in computing; power by the hour in aircraft engines; massive open online courses (MOOCs) in education; hub-and-spoke and yield management models in airlines; online retailing; and cloud computing. By flexing their assets, airlines such as Southwest Airlines, easyJet and Ryanair have created a new, low-cost market segment for flyers within the US and Europe, and have succeeded in challenging long-haul incumbents. First, the low-cost carriers rebased the existing airline business model by maximising the time that their most valuable assets – their aircraft – spend in the air, and reducing the time they spend on the ground. Second, they use a hub-and-spoke model that maximises reach while minimising the typical journey distance. Third, they use new digital technology to understand, anticipate and influence consumer behaviour and ticket pricing to squeeze as much revenue as possible from their main, perishable resource: seats on flights.


pages: 292 words: 81,699

More Joel on Software by Joel Spolsky

a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, barriers to entry, Black Swan, Build a better mousetrap, business process, call centre, Danny Hillis, David Heinemeier Hansson, failed state, Firefox, fixed income, functional programming, George Gilder, Larry Wall, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Mars Rover, Network effects, Paul Graham, performance metric, place-making, price discrimination, prisoner's dilemma, Ray Oldenburg, Ruby on Rails, Sand Hill Road, Silicon Valley, slashdot, social software, Steve Ballmer, Steve Jobs, Superbowl ad, The Great Good Place, Tragedy of the Commons, type inference, unpaid internship, wage slave, web application, Y Combinator

They don’t want to think they’re paying extra just because they’re not clever enough to find the magic coupon code. The airline industry got really, really good at segmenting and ended up charging literally a different price to every single person on the plane. As a result, most people felt they weren’t getting the best deal, and they didn’t like the airlines. When a new alternative arose in the form of low-cost carriers (Southwest, JetBlue, etc.), customers had no loyalty whatsoever to the legacy airlines that had been trying to pick their pockets for all those years. Camels and Rubber Duckies 273 And God help you if an A-list blogger finds out that your premium printer is identical to the cheap printer, with the speed inhibitor turned off.


pages: 308 words: 99,298

Brexit, No Exit: Why in the End Britain Won't Leave Europe by Denis MacShane

3D printing, banking crisis, battle of ideas, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, British Empire, centre right, Corn Laws, deindustrialization, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, Etonian, European colonialism, first-past-the-post, fixed income, Gini coefficient, greed is good, illegal immigration, James Dyson, labour mobility, liberal capitalism, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, Mont Pelerin Society, negative equity, Neil Kinnock, new economy, non-tariff barriers, offshore financial centre, open borders, open economy, price stability, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, reshoring, road to serfdom, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, Thales and the olive presses, trade liberalization, transaction costs, women in the workforce

The EU has all but abolished those monopoly privileges. There is also a broad so-called Open Skies Agreement signed between the EU and the US in 2007 which allows airlines from Europe, including Britain, to fly to the US and Canada. The European Common Aviation Area extends to Norway and Iceland, and as a result there are some interesting low-cost carriers now offering cheap flights from the UK to North America. Britain has pushed for the creation of the ‘Single European Sky’ to allow airlines to choose the best, most-effective route irrespective of national borders and control system so as to save on fuel costs and speed up trips. All these arrangements are ultimately under EU law and in consequence the final arbiter in case of dispute is the European Court of Justice.


pages: 309 words: 100,573

Cockpit Confidential: Everything You Need to Know About Air Travel: Questions, Answers, and Reflections by Patrick Smith

Airbus A320, airline deregulation, airport security, Atul Gawande, call centre, Captain Sullenberger Hudson, collective bargaining, inflight wifi, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Maui Hawaii, Mercator projection, New Urbanism, pattern recognition, race to the bottom, Skype, Tenerife airport disaster, US Airways Flight 1549, zero-sum game

Losses were in the billions, layoffs in the tens of thousands. For the most part, that bleeding has stopped, but while the entrenched old-timers were left to shed costs, reshape their business models, and return to profitability—a decade-long process that ultimately resulted in three mega-mergers—opportunistic low-cost carriers (LCCs) like jetBlue, Southwest, Spirit, and AirTran seized the opportunity. Unencumbered by high labor costs or the need to support complex fleets and decades-old infrastructures, these adaptable youngsters were able to offer streamlined service and irresistibly cheap tickets, rapidly winning over a huge segment of the domestic U.S. market.


pages: 372 words: 101,678

Lessons from the Titans: What Companies in the New Economy Can Learn from the Great Industrial Giants to Drive Sustainable Success by Scott Davis, Carter Copeland, Rob Wertheimer

3D printing, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, additive manufacturing, Airbnb, airport security, barriers to entry, business cycle, business process, clean water, commoditize, coronavirus, corporate governance, Covid-19, COVID-19, disruptive innovation, Elon Musk, factory automation, global pandemic, hydraulic fracturing, Internet of things, iterative process, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Marc Andreessen, megacity, Network effects, new economy, Ponzi scheme, profit maximization, random walk, RFID, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, six sigma, skunkworks, software is eating the world, strikebreaker, Toyota Production System, Uber for X, WeWork, winner-take-all economy

The members of the engineering team amplified these competitive dynamics, as they wanted to get back to doing what they did best, pushing the technology envelope in new airplane development. Major technology shifts in the aviation world happen at a decadal pace, and in the early 2000s there were several vectors of technology that warranted exploration. High oil prices, as well as emerging competition from upstart airline competitors known as low-cost carriers (LCCs), had Boeing’s customers clamoring for greater fuel efficiency. Their concerns brought to the fore a new material used mainly in military aircraft and spacecraft production. The new material was carbon fiber reinforced polymer composite (CFRP), or just “composite.” Composite’s strength-to-weight ratio was significantly greater than that of traditional materials like aluminum, which translated to significant weight savings and by extension to fuel savings.


Discover Greece Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

car-free, carbon footprint, credit crunch, G4S, haute couture, haute cuisine, low cost airline, low cost carrier, pension reform, sensible shoes, too big to fail, trade route, urban renewal

Getting There & Away AIR Most travellers arrive in Crete by air, usually with a change in Athens. Iraklio’s Nikos Kazantzakis Airport (www.heraklion-airport.info) is Crete’s busiest airport, although Hania (www.chania-airport.com) is convenient for travellers heading to western Crete. Between May and October, European low-cost carriers and charter airlines operate direct flights to Crete, mostly from UK and German airports. Aegean Airlines has year-round direct flights to Crete from London, Milan, Paris and Rome; coming from another destination requires connecting in Athens. Olympic Air serves Crete from Athens and Thessaloniki To reach Crete by air from other Greek islands usually requires changing in Athens, except for flights operated by Crete-based airline Sky Express (www.skyexpress.gr) .


Egypt Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

call centre, carbon footprint, Eratosthenes, friendly fire, G4S, haute cuisine, Khartoum Gordon, late fees, low cost airline, low cost carrier, spice trade, sustainable-tourism, Thales and the olive presses, trade route, urban planning, urban sprawl

Of note: EgyptAir (www.egyptair.com) Member of Star Alliance. Tickets are cheap, and its international fleet is in good shape. No alcohol is served. Jetairfly (www.jetairfly.com) Low-cost carrier from Brussels. Meridiana fly (www.meridiana.it) Flights from Milan. Air Sinai (www.egyptair.com) From Tel Aviv. Buy tickets at the unmarked office at Ben Yehuda and Allenby. Run by EgyptAir. Alexandria has become a viable alternate airport, especially for low-cost carriers: Air Arabia (www.airarabia.com) Connects to cities around the Middle East and Milan. flydubai (www.flydubai.com) Also serves Middle Eastern cities. Sharm el-Sheikh is handy if you’ll be spending most of your time in Sinai and Jordan.


pages: 437 words: 113,173

Age of Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance by Ian Goldin, Chris Kutarna

2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, 3D printing, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, AltaVista, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, autonomous vehicles, banking crisis, barriers to entry, battle of ideas, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, bioinformatics, bitcoin, Bonfire of the Vanities, clean water, collective bargaining, Colonization of Mars, Credit Default Swap, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, Dava Sobel, demographic dividend, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, double helix, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, epigenetics, experimental economics, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial innovation, full employment, Galaxy Zoo, global pandemic, global supply chain, Hyperloop, immigration reform, income inequality, indoor plumbing, industrial cluster, industrial robot, information retrieval, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), intermodal, Internet of things, invention of the printing press, Isaac Newton, Islamic Golden Age, Johannes Kepler, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, low cost airline, low cost carrier, low skilled workers, Lyft, Mahbub ul Haq, Malacca Straits, mass immigration, megacity, Mikhail Gorbachev, moral hazard, Nelson Mandela, Network effects, New Urbanism, non-tariff barriers, Occupy movement, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, open economy, Panamax, Pearl River Delta, personalized medicine, Peter Thiel, post-Panamax, profit motive, rent-seeking, reshoring, Robert Gordon, Robert Metcalfe, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, smart grid, Snapchat, special economic zone, spice trade, statistical model, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Stuxnet, The Future of Employment, too big to fail, trade liberalization, trade route, transaction costs, transatlantic slave trade, uber lyft, undersea cable, uranium enrichment, We are the 99%, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, working poor, working-age population, zero day

Between 1990 and 2014, the worldwide total of international tourist arrivals (defined as visits of at least one night) rose from 440 million to 1.4 billion visits, with China now the biggest source of travelers.36 Air traffic presents similarly stark evidence. Total passenger trips have leapt from some 500 million in 1990 to over 3.2 billion in 2014.37 And since 2011, international flights have outnumbered domestic.38 Many factors have driven this growth. One is the invention of low-cost carriers (Southwest Airlines, EasyJet, RyanAir, Peach and others) in North America, Europe and Asia, which broadened considerably the community of airborne commuters. But the bigger factor is the emergence of new hubs on the once-margins of the world, plugging those populations into the global circulation of jet-setters.


Germany Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

Airbnb, Albert Einstein, bank run, Berlin Wall, bike sharing scheme, British Empire, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, double helix, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Frank Gehry, glass ceiling, haute couture, haute cuisine, Honoré de Balzac, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Kepler, Kickstarter, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Mikhail Gorbachev, New Urbanism, oil shale / tar sands, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Eisenman, post-work, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, sensible shoes, Skype, starchitect, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, V2 rocket, white picket fence

Tourist Office (01805-101 030; www.bremen-tourism.de) There is a tourist office in the city centre (www.bremen-tourism.de; Obernstrasse; 10am-6.30pm Mon-Fri, 10am-4pm Sat & Sun) near Markt and another at the main train station (9am-7pm Mon-Fri, 9.30am-6pm Sat & Sun). Getting There & Away Air Bremen Airport (BRE; www.airport-bremen.de) is about 3.5km south of the centre and has flights to destinations in Germany and Europe. Airline offices here include Air Berlin (www.airberlin.com) and Lufthansa Airlines (www.lufthansa.com). Low-cost carrier Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) flies to Edinburgh and London Stansted. Boat Hal Över Schreiber Reederei (338 989; www.hal-oever.de; Schlachte 2, Martinianleger; office 9am-3pm Mon & Fri, to 5pm Wed) operates scheduled services along the Weser between April and September. Boats from Bremen to Bremerhaven (one way/return €15/25, 3½ hours), with numerous stops en route, depart at 8.30am every Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday, and 9.30am on Sunday during peak summer months.

Offices include: Airport (Airport Plaza btwn Terminals 1 & 2; 6am-11pm) Hauptbahnhof (Kirchenallee exit; 8am-9pm Mon-Sat, 10am-6pm Sun) St Pauli Landungsbrücken (btwn piers 4 & 5; 8am-6pm Apr-Oct, 10am-6pm Nov-Mar; Landungsbrücken) Getting There & Away Air Hamburg Airport (HAM; www.flughafen-hamburg.de) has frequent flights to domestic and European cities, including on Lufthansa and most other major European carriers; low-cost carriers include Air Berlin and EasyJet. Despite their marketing hype, the ‘Hamburg’ services by Ryanair and Wizzair use Lübeck’s airport (Click here). Bus The ZOB (Busbahnhof, Central Bus Station; 247 576; www.zob-hamburg.de; Adenauerallee 78; ticket counters 5am-10pm Mon-Tue, Thu, Sat & Sun, to midnight Wed & Fri) is southeast of the Hauptbahnhof.

Information Tourist Office (Welcome Center am Holstentor; 01805 882 233; www.luebeck-tourismus.de; Holstentorplatz 1; 9.30am-7pm Mon-Fri, 10am-3pm Sat & 10am-2pm Sun Jun-Sep, 9.30am-6pm Mon-Fri & 10am-3pm Sat Oct-May) Sells the Happy Day Card (per 1/2/3 days €10/12/15) offering free public transport in Lübeck and Travemünde and museum discounts. Also has a cafe and internet terminals. Netzwerk (409 5552; Wahmstrasse 58; per hr €2; 10am-10pm Mon-Sat) Internet access. Getting There & Away Air Low-cost carriers Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) and Wizzair (www.wizzair.com) serve Lübeck airport (LBC; www.flughafen-luebeck.de), which they euphemistically call Hamburg-Lübeck. Destinations include Milan and Stockholm. Buses take passengers straight to Hamburg (one-way €10, 55 minutes), while scheduled bus 6 (€2.70) serves Lübeck’s Hauptbahnhof and central bus station.


pages: 478 words: 126,416

Other People's Money: Masters of the Universe or Servants of the People? by John Kay

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, Basel III, Bear Stearns, Bernie Madoff, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bitcoin, Black Swan, Bonfire of the Vanities, bonus culture, Bretton Woods, buy and hold, call centre, capital asset pricing model, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, cognitive dissonance, corporate governance, Credit Default Swap, cross-subsidies, dematerialisation, disinformation, disruptive innovation, diversification, diversified portfolio, Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse, Elon Musk, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, eurozone crisis, financial innovation, financial intermediation, financial thriller, fixed income, Flash crash, forward guidance, Fractional reserve banking, full employment, George Akerlof, German hyperinflation, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, Growth in a Time of Debt, Ida Tarbell, income inequality, index fund, inflation targeting, information asymmetry, intangible asset, interest rate derivative, interest rate swap, invention of the wheel, Irish property bubble, Isaac Newton, James Carville said: "I would like to be reincarnated as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.", John Meriwether, light touch regulation, London Whale, Long Term Capital Management, loose coupling, low cost airline, low cost carrier, M-Pesa, market design, millennium bug, mittelstand, Money creation, money market fund, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Myron Scholes, NetJets, new economy, Nick Leeson, Northern Rock, obamacare, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, oil shock, passive investing, Paul Samuelson, peer-to-peer lending, performance metric, Peter Thiel, Piper Alpha, Ponzi scheme, price mechanism, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, railway mania, Ralph Waldo Emerson, random walk, regulatory arbitrage, Renaissance Technologies, rent control, risk free rate, risk tolerance, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, salary depends on his not understanding it, Schrödinger's Cat, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, Spread Networks laid a new fibre optics cable between New York and Chicago, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, The Great Moderation, The Market for Lemons, the market place, The Myth of the Rational Market, the payments system, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, The Wisdom of Crowds, Tobin tax, too big to fail, transaction costs, tulip mania, Upton Sinclair, Vanguard fund, Washington Consensus, We are the 99%, Yom Kippur War

One side asserted the process was a racket operated for the benefit of large corporations, the other that consumers would be better served by the operation of a free market. There was substantial truth in both claims. A regulatory historian, Alfred Kahn, was appointed chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board, where he accomplished the unusual feat of winding up the agency he headed. Rapid growth of low-cost carriers followed, first in the USA and then in other parts of the world. Many of the established firms, such as Pan Am and TWA, failed, but some successfully adjusted to the competitive environment, and new entrants came – and often went. Airline regulation today is focused narrowly on safety and related issues, and the industry has developed what is known as a ‘just culture’, which encourages an openness about failures and a combination of collective responsibility for integrity and competitive responsibility for service.20 The concept of ‘just culture’ is now gaining traction in other areas of commercial activity of public concern, such as medicine.


pages: 803 words: 415,953

Frommer's Mexico 2009 by David Baird, Lynne Bairstow, Joy Hepp, Juan Christiano

airport security, AltaVista, Bartolomé de las Casas, centre right, colonial rule, East Village, glass ceiling, haute cuisine, indoor plumbing, low cost airline, low cost carrier, out of africa, Pepto Bismol, place-making, Skype, sustainable-tourism, the market place, urban planning, young professional

P L A N N I N G YO U R T R I P TO M E X I C O GETTING AROUND BY PLANE Mexico has two large private national carriers: Mexicana (& 800/531-7921; www.mexicana.com) and AeroMéxico (& 800/237-6639; www.aeromexico. com), in addition to several up-and-coming low-cost carriers. Mexicana and AeroMéxico offer extensive connections to the United States as well as within Mexico. Up-and-coming low-cost carriers include Aviacsa (www.aviacsa.com), Avolar (www.avolar.com.mx), Click Mexicana (www.click.com.mx), InterJet (www.interjet.com.mx), and Volaris (www.volaris.com.mx). Regional carriers include Aerovega (www.oaxaca-mio. com/aerovega.htm), Aero Tucán (www. aero-tucan.com), and AeroMéxico Connect (www.amconnect.com).

Local numbers for major airlines with nonstop or direct service to Acapulco are AeroMéxico (& 744/485-1600 inside Mexico), American (& 744/ 481-0161, or 01-800/904-6000 inside Mexico for reservations), Continental (& 744/466-9063), Mexicana (& 744/466-9138 or 486-7585), and US Airways (& 744/466-9257). AeroMéxico flies from Guadalajara, Mexico City, Tijuana, and Monterrey; Aviacsa (& 01800/711-6733) flies from Mexico City; InterJet (& 01800/01-12345) is a low-cost carrier that flies from Toluca, about an hour from Mexico City; Mexicana flies from Mexico City. Check with a travel agent about charter flights. The airport (airport code: ACA) is 22km (14 miles) southeast of town, over the hills east of the bay. Private taxis are the fastest way to get downtown; they cost $30 to $50 (£15–£25).


pages: 890 words: 133,829

Sardinia Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, haute couture, Honoré de Balzac, Kickstarter, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Skype

Police stationPOLICE ( GOOGLE MAP ; %079 972 00 00; Via Fratelli Kennedy 1) Post officePOST OFFICE ( GOOGLE MAP ; Via Carducci 35; h8.20am-7.05pm Mon-Fri, 8.20am-12.35pm Sat) Tourist officeTOURIST INFORMATION ( GOOGLE MAP ; %079 97 90 54; www.alghero-turismo.it; Piazza Porta Terra 9; h8am-8pm Mon-Sat, 10am-1pm Sun) English-speaking staff and tonnes of practical information. 8Getting There & Away Air Alghero’s Fertilia airport ( GOOGLE MAP ; %079 93 50 11; www.aeroportodialghero.it) is 10km northwest of town. It's served by Alitalia (www.alitalia.com) and a number of low-cost carriers, including Ryanair (www.ryanair.com), which operates flights to mainland Italy and destinations across Europe, including Barcelona, Dublin, Frankfurt, London, Madrid and Paris. Bus Intercity buses stop at and leave from Via Catalogna, by the Giardini Pubblici. Buy tickets at the ticket office in the gardens.


pages: 496 words: 131,938

The Future Is Asian by Parag Khanna

3D printing, Admiral Zheng, affirmative action, Airbnb, Amazon Web Services, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, Ayatollah Khomeini, barriers to entry, Basel III, blockchain, Boycotts of Israel, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, call centre, capital controls, carbon footprint, cashless society, clean water, cloud computing, colonial rule, computer vision, connected car, corporate governance, crony capitalism, currency peg, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, energy security, European colonialism, factory automation, failed state, falling living standards, family office, fixed income, flex fuel, gig economy, global reserve currency, global supply chain, haute couture, haute cuisine, illegal immigration, impact investing, income inequality, industrial robot, informal economy, Internet of things, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, light touch regulation, low cost airline, low cost carrier, low skilled workers, Lyft, Malacca Straits, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, Mikhail Gorbachev, money market fund, Monroe Doctrine, mortgage debt, natural language processing, Netflix Prize, new economy, off grid, oil shale / tar sands, open economy, Parag Khanna, payday loans, Pearl River Delta, prediction markets, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, reserve currency, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Scramble for Africa, self-driving car, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, smart cities, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, supply-chain management, sustainable-tourism, trade liberalization, trade route, transaction costs, Travis Kalanick, uber lyft, upwardly mobile, urban planning, Washington Consensus, working-age population, Yom Kippur War

Two decades on from the 1997 financial crisis, trade and investment liberalization and supply-chain integration have spurred robust economic growth on the back of record volumes of foreign investment with global linkages spreading beyond India, China, Japan, and Australia to the Gulf countries, Europe, the United States, and even Latin America. ASEAN’s members have committed to a 2025 master plan to harmonize standards for banking, telecoms, and e-commerce, by which time Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam may change their time zone to align with Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Manila. Air Asia and a dozen other low-cost carriers have made intraregional travel affordable for the masses, leading to waves of tourists visiting one another’s countries and taking cross-border jobs with the growing number of large pan-Asian companies. In the coming years, major new transport and trade corridors such as a high-speed railway network from Kunming in southern China through Laos, Thailand, and Malaysia to Singapore will knit China ever more closely to Southeast Asia.


Canary Islands Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

AltaVista, call centre, carbon footprint, G4S, Haight Ashbury, haute cuisine, Kickstarter, low cost airline, low cost carrier, urban sprawl

Virtually everyone else is supposed to obtain (from a Spanish consulate in their country of residence) a work permit and, if they plan to stay more than 90 days, a residence visa. While jobs (especially in tourist resorts) aren’t that hard to come by, the procedures necessary to get your paperwork in order can be difficult and time-consuming. Transport Top of section GETTING THERE & AWAY Getting to the Canary Islands is a cinch. Low-cost carriers are plentiful from all over Europe, particularly from Germany, the UK and Spain. Flights, tours and rail tickets can be booked online at www.lonelyplanet.com/travel_services. Entering the Canary Islands Citizens of the European Union (EU) member states and Switzerland can travel to the Canary Islands with just their national identity card.


pages: 497 words: 144,283

Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization by Parag Khanna

"Robert Solow", 1919 Motor Transport Corps convoy, 2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, 9 dash line, additive manufacturing, Admiral Zheng, affirmative action, agricultural Revolution, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Asian financial crisis, asset allocation, autonomous vehicles, banking crisis, Basel III, Berlin Wall, bitcoin, Black Swan, blockchain, borderless world, Boycotts of Israel, Branko Milanovic, BRICs, British Empire, business intelligence, call centre, capital controls, charter city, clean water, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, commoditize, complexity theory, continuation of politics by other means, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, credit crunch, crony capitalism, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, data is the new oil, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deglobalization, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, Deng Xiaoping, Detroit bankruptcy, digital map, disruptive innovation, diversification, Doha Development Round, edge city, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, energy security, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, European colonialism, eurozone crisis, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, family office, Ferguson, Missouri, financial innovation, financial repression, fixed income, forward guidance, global supply chain, global value chain, global village, Google Earth, Hernando de Soto, high net worth, Hyperloop, ice-free Arctic, if you build it, they will come, illegal immigration, income inequality, income per capita, industrial cluster, industrial robot, informal economy, Infrastructure as a Service, interest rate swap, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, Isaac Newton, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, John von Neumann, Julian Assange, Just-in-time delivery, Kevin Kelly, Khyber Pass, Kibera, Kickstarter, LNG terminal, low cost airline, low cost carrier, low earth orbit, manufacturing employment, mass affluent, mass immigration, megacity, Mercator projection, Metcalfe’s law, microcredit, mittelstand, Monroe Doctrine, mutually assured destruction, New Economic Geography, new economy, New Urbanism, off grid, offshore financial centre, oil rush, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, openstreetmap, out of africa, Panamax, Parag Khanna, Peace of Westphalia, peak oil, Pearl River Delta, Peter Thiel, Philip Mirowski, Plutocrats, plutocrats, post-oil, post-Panamax, private military company, purchasing power parity, QWERTY keyboard, race to the bottom, Rana Plaza, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Robert Shiller, Ronald Coase, Scramble for Africa, Second Machine Age, sharing economy, Shenzhen special economic zone , Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, six sigma, Skype, smart cities, Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia, South China Sea, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, spice trade, Stuxnet, supply-chain management, sustainable-tourism, TaskRabbit, telepresence, the built environment, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, UNCLOS, uranium enrichment, urban planning, urban sprawl, WikiLeaks, Yochai Benkler, young professional, zero day

Chinese companies operate mines in Shan, pipelines cross through it, the yuan can be used as currency there, and mixed marriages are rising.*6 Carving through Southeast Asia is no longer about borders but about the management of flows and frictions. ASEAN’s businesspeople, workers, students, and tourists now ferry across the region in record numbers on the back of low-cost carriers such as AirAsia, which has done as much for regional integration as any diplomatic body. Demographic shifts guarantee that Asia’s blending will continue: The erstwhile “Asian Tigers” such as Singapore and Taiwan—to say nothing of much larger China and Japan—are aging, while Indonesia and the Philippines are full of youthful labor.


Lonely Planet Cancun, Cozumel & the Yucatan (Travel Guide) by Lonely Planet, John Hecht, Sandra Bao

Bartolomé de las Casas, carbon footprint, colonial rule, illegal immigration, income inequality, low cost airline, low cost carrier, mass immigration, Skype, sustainable-tourism, trade route, traffic fines

Getting There & Away Air Cancún’s Aeropuerto Internacional de Cancún ( 848-7200; www.asur.com.mx; Carretera Cancún-Chetumal, Km 22) is the busiest in southeastern Mexico. It has all the services you would expect from a major international airport: ATMs, money exchange, rental-car agencies. Cancún is served by many direct international flights and by connecting flights from Mexico City. Low-cost carriers Viva Aerobus (www.vivaaerobus.com), Interjet (www.interjet.com) and Volaris (www.volaris.com) all have service from Mexico City. The following is just some of the dozens of carriers with flights to Cancún. For a more complete list, see the airport website. Aeroméxico ( 287-1860; www.aeromexico.com; Av Cobá 80; R-1) Direct flights from New York.


Lonely Planet Cancun, Cozumel & the Yucatan (Travel Guide) by Lonely Planet, John Hecht, Lucas Vidgen

Bartolomé de las Casas, carbon footprint, colonial rule, illegal immigration, low cost airline, low cost carrier, mass immigration, Skype, sustainable-tourism, trade route, traffic fines

Lonely Planet offsets the carbon footprint of all staff and author travel. Air Most visitors to the Yucatán arrive by air. Direct flights normally originate from an airline's hub city and connecting flights often go through Mexico City. Mexico’s flagship airline is Aeroméxico. Its safety record is comparable to major US and European airlines. Domestic low-cost carriers provide service mostly from Mexico City. MayAir runs prop planes that stop in Cozumel, Cancún and Mérida. Airports & Airlines The majority of flights into the peninsula arrive in Cancún or Mérida. The Yucatán's major airports: Aeropuerto Ángel Albino Corzo (%961-153-60-68; www.chiapasaero.com; Sarabia s/n) Aka Tuxtla Gutiérrez; serves San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas.


Italy by Damien Simonis

active transport: walking or cycling, airport security, bike sharing scheme, Bonfire of the Vanities, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, clean water, congestion charging, discovery of the americas, Frank Gehry, haute couture, illegal immigration, Kickstarter, large denomination, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Murano, Venice glass, pension reform, period drama, Peter Eisenman, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Skype, spice trade, starchitect, sustainable-tourism, trade route, urban planning, urban sprawl, women in the workforce

Getting There & Away AIR Falconara airport (Raffaello Sanzio Airport; AOI; 071 2 82 71; www.ancona-airport.it, in Italian), although it’s expanded in recent years, is still without some services (such as, oh, restaurants). Flights arrive from Munich, Dusseldorf, London, Rome, Florence and Moscow, along with a few more obscure locales like Timisoara and Majorca. Major airlines that fly into Ancona include Lufthansa, Alitalia and Ryanair. Click here for more information on low-cost carriers such as Ryanair. BUS Most buses originate at Piazza Cavour except for a few to Falconara and the Portonovo bus, which originate at the train station. See the table below for destinations. CAR & MOTORCYCLE Ancona is on the A14, which links Bologna with Bari. The SS16 coastal road runs parallel to the autostrada and is a more pleasant toll-free alternative if you’re not looking to get anywhere fast.

Return to beginning of chapter GETTING THERE & AWAY Air Capodichino airport (NAP; off Map; 081 789 62 59; www.gesac.it), 7km northeast of the city centre, is southern Italy’s main airport, linking Naples with most Italian and several major European cities, as well as New York. Serviced by a number of major airlines, including Alitalia and British Airways, the airport also hosts a number of low-cost carriers. Among the latter is easyjet which connects Naples to several European cities, including London, Paris (Orly) and Berlin. Boat Naples, the bay islands and the Amalfi Coast are served by a comprehensive ferry network. In Naples, ferries and hydrofoils leave for Capri, Sorrento, Ischia, Procida and Forio from Molo Beverello in front of Castel Nuovo; hydrofoils for Capri, Ischia and Procida also sail from Mergellina; longer-distance ferries for Palermo, Cagliari, Milazzo, the Aeolian Islands (Isole Eolie) and Tunisia leave from the Stazione Marittima.

Return to beginning of chapter AIR High seasons are generally June to September, Christmas and Easter, although it depends in part on your destination. Shoulder season is often from mid-September to the end of October and again in April. Low season is generally November to March. Airports & Airlines The country’s main intercontinental gateway is the Leonardo da Vinci Airport (Fiumicino; 06 6 59 51; www.adr.it) in Rome, but many low-cost carriers land at Rome’s Ciampino Airport ( 06 6 59 51; www.adr.it) – Click here for more details. Regular intercontinental flights also serve Milan’s Malpensa Airport ( 02 7485 2200; www.sea-aeroportimilano.it), which is located 50km from the city. Plenty of flights from other European cities fly to regional capitals (Click here for more information).


Fodor's Barcelona by Fodor's

Albert Einstein, call centre, Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Bilbao, haute couture, haute cuisine, low cost airline, low cost carrier, market design, urban renewal, urban sprawl, young professional

Nonstop flights from London to Barcelona are 2¼ hours. Regular nonstop flights connect the eastern United States with Barcelona. Flying from other cities in North America usually involves a stop. Flights from the United Kingdom to a number of destinations in Spain are frequent and offered at competitive fares, particularly on low-cost carriers such as Ryanair or easyJet. Beware of low-cost flights to “Barcelona” that, in fact, land in Girona, a 45-minute taxi ride north of Barcelona; often the taxi (or even the bus) costs more than the flight. Iberia operates a shuttle, the puente aereo, between Barcelona and Madrid from around 7 AM to 11 PM; planes depart hourly, and more frequently in the morning and afternoon commuter hours.


Croatia by Anja Mutic, Vesna Maric

call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, friendly fire, G4S, haute cuisine, low cost airline, low cost carrier, starchitect

Police will not always take reports of ‘date rape’ seriously. Be careful about being alone with an unfamiliar man. Topless sunbathing is tolerated, but there are numerous nudist beaches. Top of section Transport GETTING THERE & AWAY Getting to Croatia is becoming ever easier, especially if you’re arriving in summer. Low-cost carriers have established routes to Croatia – you can now fly to Dubrovnik, Split, Zadar, Rijeka, Pula and Zagreb on a budget airline. A plethora of bus and ferry routes also shepherd holidaymakers to the coast. Flights, tours and rail tickets can be booked online at www.lonelyplanet.com/bookings. Entering the Country With an economy that depends heavily on tourism, Croatia has wisely kept red tape to a minimum for foreign visitors.


pages: 638 words: 156,653

Berlin by Andrea Schulte-Peevers

Albert Einstein, Berlin Wall, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Frank Gehry, glass ceiling, Google Earth, indoor plumbing, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Kickstarter, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Skype, starchitect, trade route, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal

Not to mention, it helps min-imise your carbon footprint. Getting to the city is easy as well. Flights, tours and rail tickets can be booked online at www.lonelyplanet.com/travel_services. Return to beginning of chapter AIR Lufthansa, practically all other major European airlines and low-cost carriers (including Air Berlin, easyJet, Ryanair and Germanwings) operate direct flights to Berlin from throughout Europe. With few exceptions, travel from outside Europe involves a change of planes in another European city such as Frankfurt or Amsterdam. Your best friend in ferreting out deals is the internet.


pages: 598 words: 172,137

Who Stole the American Dream? by Hedrick Smith

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbus A320, airline deregulation, anti-communist, asset allocation, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Bonfire of the Vanities, British Empire, business cycle, business process, clean water, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, commoditize, corporate governance, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, currency manipulation / currency intervention, David Brooks, Deng Xiaoping, desegregation, Double Irish / Dutch Sandwich, family office, full employment, global supply chain, Gordon Gekko, guest worker program, hiring and firing, housing crisis, Howard Zinn, income inequality, independent contractor, index fund, industrial cluster, informal economy, invisible hand, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Kitchen Debate, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, laissez-faire capitalism, late fees, Long Term Capital Management, low cost airline, low cost carrier, manufacturing employment, market fundamentalism, Maui Hawaii, mega-rich, MITM: man-in-the-middle, mortgage debt, negative equity, new economy, Occupy movement, Own Your Own Home, Paul Samuelson, Peter Thiel, Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances, Ponzi scheme, Powell Memorandum, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, Renaissance Technologies, reshoring, rising living standards, Robert Bork, Robert Shiller, Robert Shiller, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, shareholder value, Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Steve Jobs, The Chicago School, The Spirit Level, too big to fail, transaction costs, transcontinental railway, union organizing, Unsafe at Any Speed, Vanguard fund, We are the 99%, women in the workforce, working poor, Y2K

Pat O’Neill, who ended up making $50,000 plus, could count on an annual retirement of roughly $36,000, or about $3,000 a month—for the rest of his life. United Airlines was committed to that under its union contracts and the 1974 Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). Bankrupt Promises The crunch began in the 1990s. Low-cost carriers like Southwest Airlines began eating into United’s market share, and its profit margins slipped. In 1994, United’s finances were so shaky that management struck a grand bargain with its unions—management would trade 55 percent majority ownership in the company to its unions in exchange for their agreeing to $4.9 billion in pay cuts and reduced benefits.


Lonely Planet Colombia (Travel Guide) by Lonely Planet, Alex Egerton, Tom Masters, Kevin Raub

airport security, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, colonial rule, Columbian Exchange, Downton Abbey, El Camino Real, Francisco Pizarro, friendly fire, glass ceiling, haute couture, land reform, low cost airline, low cost carrier, race to the bottom, sustainable-tourism, urban sprawl

SatenaAIRLINE (%1 800 091 2034; www.satena.com) The commercial carrier of the FAC (Colombian Air Force) services flights to the vast areas of the Amazon, Los Llanos and the Pacific coast; it lands at numerous small towns and villages that would be otherwise virtually inaccessible. VivaColombiaAIRLINE (%4 444 9489; www.vivacolombia.co) Medellín-based upstart low-cost carrier serving many of Colombia's main destinations. Bicycle Colombia is not the easiest of countries for cyclists, though the sport is wildly popular in certain regions (Boyacá, for example). Road rules favor drivers and you'll end up fighting traffic on main roadways. Never assume that a driver will give you right of way.


Lonely Planet Iceland (Travel Guide) by Lonely Planet, Carolyn Bain, Alexis Averbuck

Airbnb, banking crisis, car-free, carbon footprint, cashless society, centre right, European colonialism, food miles, Kickstarter, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Mikhail Gorbachev, New Urbanism, post-work, presumed consent, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, undersea cable

Find a list of airlines serving the country at www.kefairport.is/English/Service/Airlines/. Icelandair (www.icelandair.com) is the national carrier, with an excellent safety record. Air Iceland (Flugfélag Íslands; www.airiceland.is) is the main domestic airline, but also flies to destinations in Greenland and the Faroe Islands. WOW Air (www.wowair.com) is an Icelandic low-cost carrier, serving a growing number of European and North American destinations. Sea Smyril Line (www.smyrilline.com) operates a pricey but well-patronised weekly car ferry, the Norröna, from Hirsthals (Denmark) through Tórshavn (Faroe Islands) to Seyðisfjörður in east Iceland. Boats run year-round between Denmark and the Faroe Islands; Iceland is part of the set itinerary from late March until October.


Sweden by Becky Ohlsen

accounting loophole / creative accounting, car-free, centre right, clean water, financial independence, glass ceiling, haute couture, Kickstarter, low cost airline, low cost carrier, mass immigration, New Urbanism, period drama, place-making, post-work, starchitect, the built environment, white picket fence

Return to beginning of chapter GETTING THERE & AWAY Air Stockholm’s main airport, Stockholm-Arlanda (797 60 00; www.arlanda.se, www.lfv.se), is 45km north of the city centre and can be reached from central Stockholm by both bus and express train (Click here). Bromma Airport (797 68 00) is 8km west of Stockholm and is used for some domestic flights. Skavsta Airport (0155-28 04 00), 100km south of Stockholm, near Nyköping, is mostly used by low-cost carriers like Ryanair and Wizz Air. The SAS (0770-72 77 27; www.sas.se) network serves 28 Swedish destinations from Arlanda, and has international services to Copenhagen, Oslo, Helsinki and a host of other European cities including Amsterdam, Barcelona, Brussels, Berlin, Dublin, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hamburg, London, Manchester, Milan, Moscow, Paris, Rome, St Petersburg and Zagreb.


Frommer's Mexico 2008 by David Baird, Juan Cristiano, Lynne Bairstow, Emily Hughey Quinn

airport security, AltaVista, Bartolomé de las Casas, centre right, colonial rule, East Village, glass ceiling, haute cuisine, indoor plumbing, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Maui Hawaii, out of africa, Pepto Bismol, place-making, Skype, sustainable-tourism, the market place, urban planning

BY PLANE Mexico has two large private national carriers: Mexicana (& 800/531-7921; www. mexicana.com) and AeroMéxico (& 800/ 237-6639; www.aeromexico.com), in addition to several up-and-coming lowcost carriers. Mexicana and AeroMéxico offer extensive connections to the United States as well as within Mexico. Up-and-coming low-cost carriers include Aviacsa (www.aviacsa.com), Click Mexicana (www.click.com.mx), and InterJet (www.interjet.com.mx). Regional carriers include Aerovega (www.oaxaca-mio.com/aerovega.htm), Aero Tucán (www.aero-tucan.com), and AeroMéxico’s Aerolitoral (www.aeroli toral.com.mx). The regional carriers can be expensive, but they go to difficult-toreach places.

Local numbers for major airlines with nonstop or direct service to Acapulco are AeroMéxico (& 744/485-1625 or 01-800/021-4010 and -4000 inside Mexico), American (& 744/466-9232, or 01-800/904-6000 inside Mexico for reservations), Continental (& 744/466-9063), Mexicana (& 744/466-9121 or 486-7586), and US Airways (& 744/466-9257). AeroMéxico flies from Guadalajara, Mexico City, Tijuana, and Monterrey; Aviacsa (& 01800/711-6733) flies from Mexico City; InterJet (& 01800/01-12345) is a new low-cost carrier that flies from Toluca, near Mexico City; Mexicana flies from Mexico City. Check with a travel agent about charter flights. The airport (airport code: ACA) is 22km (14 miles) southeast of town, over the hills east of the bay. Private taxis are the fastest way to get downtown; they cost $30 to $50 (£17–£28).


Lonely Planet Iceland by Lonely Planet

Airbnb, banking crisis, capital controls, car-free, carbon footprint, cashless society, centre right, European colonialism, food miles, Kickstarter, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Lyft, Mikhail Gorbachev, New Urbanism, presumed consent, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft

Find a list of airlines serving the country at www.visiticeland.com (under Plan/Travel to Iceland). Icelandair (www.icelandair.com) The national carrier has an excellent safety record. Air Iceland (www.airiceland.is) The main domestic airline (not to be confused with Icelandair). Also flies to destinations in Greenland and the Faroe Islands. WOW Air (www.wowair.com) Icelandic low-cost carrier, serving a growing number of European and North American destinations. Sea Smyril Line (www.smyrilline.com) operates a pricey but well-patronised weekly car ferry, the Norröna, from Hirtshals (Denmark) through Tórshavn (Faroe Islands) to Seyðisfjörður in East Iceland. It operates year-round, although winter passage is weather-dependent – see website for more.


pages: 850 words: 254,117

Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell

affirmative action, air freight, airline deregulation, American Legislative Exchange Council, bank run, barriers to entry, big-box store, British Empire, business cycle, clean water, collective bargaining, colonial rule, corporate governance, correlation does not imply causation, cross-subsidies, David Brooks, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, declining real wages, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, diversified portfolio, European colonialism, fixed income, Fractional reserve banking, full employment, global village, Gunnar Myrdal, Hernando de Soto, hiring and firing, housing crisis, income inequality, income per capita, index fund, informal economy, inventory management, invisible hand, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, joint-stock company, Just-in-time delivery, Kenneth Arrow, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, land reform, late fees, low cost airline, low cost carrier, low skilled workers, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, minimum wage unemployment, moral hazard, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, payday loans, Post-Keynesian economics, price discrimination, price stability, profit motive, quantitative easing, Ralph Nader, rent control, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, San Francisco homelessness, Silicon Valley, surplus humans, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Chicago School, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas Malthus, transcontinental railway, Vanguard fund, War on Poverty

But, eleven years later, the ocean liners were carrying just 650,000 passengers while planes now carried four million.{261} The fact that these were technologically very different things did not mean that they could not serve as economic substitutes. In twenty-first century Latin America, airlines have even competed successfully with buses. According to the Wall Street Journal: The new low-cost carriers in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia are largely avoiding competition with incumbent full-service airlines. Instead, they are stimulating new traffic by adding cheap, no-frills flights to secondary cities that, for many residents, had long required day-long bus rides. Largely as a result, the number of airline passengers in these countries has surged.


pages: 1,042 words: 266,547

Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham, David Dodd

activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, asset-backed security, backtesting, barriers to entry, Bear Stearns, business cycle, buy and hold, capital asset pricing model, carried interest, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, corporate governance, corporate raider, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, diversification, diversified portfolio, fear of failure, financial innovation, fixed income, full employment, index fund, intangible asset, invisible hand, Joseph Schumpeter, locking in a profit, Long Term Capital Management, low cost airline, low cost carrier, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Myron Scholes, Right to Buy, risk free rate, risk-adjusted returns, risk/return, secular stagnation, shareholder value, The Chicago School, the market place, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, transaction costs, two and twenty, zero-coupon bond

Then the price of oil doubled again. The shares have declined 30% since our initial investment, and the profit outlook has dimmed. Still, the business franchise is intact. Nothing has happened that makes us believe the long-term value of our investment has diminished. In fact, during this period of adversity, other low-cost carriers are expected to cease operations. Lenders are likely to be cautious in funding possible new entrants, and consumers may wish to trade down to take advantage of Ryanair’s low fares. Over time, a company with this kind of cost advantage must take market share and earn attractive returns. The process I have just described is our attempt to cover the bases outlined by the authors of Security Analysis.


Scandinavia by Andy Symington

call centre, carbon footprint, centre right, clean water, connected car, edge city, full employment, glass ceiling, Kickstarter, low cost airline, low cost carrier, mass immigration, New Urbanism, North Sea oil, out of africa, period drama, Skype, the built environment, trade route, urban sprawl, walkable city, young professional

Getting There & Away Air Stockholm Arlanda Airport ( 797 60 00; www.arlanda.se) Stockholm’s main airport, 45km north of the city centre, reached from central Stockholm by bus and express train. Bromma Stockholm Airport ( 797 68 00) Located 8km west of Stockholm, used for some domestic flights. Stockholm Skavsta Airport ( 0155-28 04 00) 100km south of Stockholm, near Nyköping, mostly used by low-cost carriers such as Ryanair. Västerås Airport ( 21 80 56 10) About 100km northwest of Stockholm on the E18 motorway, this tiny airport is used by Ryanair. Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS; 0770-72 77 27; www.sas.se) Network serves 28 Swedish destinations from Arlanda airport and has international services to Copenhagen, Oslo, Helsinki and a host of other European cities including Amsterdam, Barcelona, Brussels, Berlin, Dublin, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hamburg, London, Manchester, Milan, Moscow, Paris, Rome, St Petersburg and Zagreb.


Lonely Planet Greek Islands by Lonely Planet, Alexis Averbuck, Michael S Clark, Des Hannigan, Victoria Kyriakopoulos, Korina Miller

car-free, carbon footprint, credit crunch, eurozone crisis, G4S, haute couture, haute cuisine, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Norman Mailer, pension reform, period drama, sensible shoes, sustainable-tourism, trade route, transfer pricing, urban sprawl

Iraklio’s Nikos Kazantzakis Airport (www.heraklion-airport.info) is Crete’s busiest airport, although Hania (www.chania-airport.com) is convenient for travellers heading to western Crete. Sitia is slated for expansion but for now only receives domestic flights. Between May and October, European low-cost carriers and charter airlines such as easyJet, Germanwings, AirBerlin, Fly Thomas Cook and Jet2 operate direct flights to Crete, mostly from UK and German airports. Aegean Airlines has year-round direct flights to Crete from London, Milan, Paris and Rome; coming from another destination requires connecting in Athens.


Greece Travel Guide by Lonely Planet

active transport: walking or cycling, Airbnb, capital controls, car-free, carbon footprint, credit crunch, haute couture, haute cuisine, illegal immigration, indoor plumbing, Kickstarter, low cost airline, low cost carrier, pension reform, period drama, sensible shoes, trade route, urban sprawl

The harsh German occupation lasted throughout WWII, with many mountain villages bombed or burnt down and their occupants executed en masse. 8Getting There & Away Air Most travellers arrive in Crete by air, usually with a change in Athens. Iraklio’s Nikos Kazantzakis Airport is Crete’s busiest airport, although Hania is convenient for travellers heading to western Crete. Sitia only receives a handful of domestic flights. Between May and October, European low-cost carriers and charter airlines such as easyJet, Germanwings, AirBerlin, Fly Thomas Cook and Jet2 operate direct flights to Crete, from all over Europe. Aegean Airlines (www.aegeanair.com) operates direct flights to Iraklio from many European airports, including London-Heathrow, Milan, Paris, Marseille and Rome.


Central America by Carolyn McCarthy, Greg Benchwick, Joshua Samuel Brown, Alex Egerton, Matthew Firestone, Kevin Raub, Tom Spurling, Lucas Vidgen

airport security, Bartolomé de las Casas, California gold rush, call centre, centre right, clean water, cognitive dissonance, currency manipulation / currency intervention, digital map, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, failed state, Francisco Pizarro, Frank Gehry, haute cuisine, illegal immigration, Joan Didion, land reform, liberation theology, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Mahatma Gandhi, Monroe Doctrine, Ronald Reagan, Skype, sustainable-tourism, trade route, transcontinental railway, urban renewal, urban sprawl, women in the workforce

Meanwhile, the FSLN government, fully aware of the potential of ecotourism in the country, has taken a real interest in environmental issues, even calling in the army to back up the nation’s underresourced park rangers. TRANSPORTATION Getting There & Away Air Nicaragua’s main airport is Augusto C Sandino in Managua (MGA; Click here). There are daily direct flights to a number of US cities, including Miami, Atlanta and Houston, while low-cost carrier Spirit airlines has a late-night service to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. There are also direct regional services to San Salvador, San José, Tegucigalpa, and Panama, with connecting services to other Latin American destinations. It’s always worth checking flight prices to neighboring Costa Rica, a smooth bus ride away, as they can be substantially cheaper.


Lonely Planet Mexico by John Noble, Kate Armstrong, Greg Benchwick, Nate Cavalieri, Gregor Clark, John Hecht, Beth Kohn, Emily Matchar, Freda Moon, Ellee Thalheimer

AltaVista, Bartolomé de las Casas, Burning Man, call centre, clean water, colonial rule, glass ceiling, haute cuisine, illegal immigration, informal economy, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Mahatma Gandhi, New Urbanism, off grid, place-making, Rosa Parks, Rubik’s Cube, Skype, sustainable-tourism, trade route, traffic fines, urban sprawl, wage slave

International online booking agencies worth a look include CheapTickets (www.cheaptickets.com), Kayak (www.kayak.com), Expedia (www.expedia.com), Travelocity (www.travelocity.com), and for students and travelers under 26, STA Travel (www.statravel.com). Skyscanner (in the USA www.skyscanner.com, in Europe www.skyscanner.net) compares flights on different airlines including low-cost carriers. INTERCONTINENTAL (RTW) TICKETS If Mexico is part of a bigger trip encompassing other countries, the best ticket for you may be an open-jaw (where you fly into one place and out of another, covering the intervening distance by land), or a round-the-world (RTW) ticket (these can cost as little as UK£900 or A$2100), or a Circle Pacific ticket, which uses a combination of airlines to travel around the Pacific region.


France (Lonely Planet, 8th Edition) by Nicola Williams

active transport: walking or cycling, back-to-the-land, bike sharing scheme, British Empire, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, Columbine, double helix, Guggenheim Bilbao, haute couture, haute cuisine, Henri Poincaré, Herbert Marcuse, Honoré de Balzac, illegal immigration, industrial robot, information trail, Jacquard loom, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Kickstarter, Louis Blériot, Louis Pasteur, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Mahatma Gandhi, means of production, Murano, Venice glass, pension reform, post-work, QWERTY keyboard, ride hailing / ride sharing, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Skype, Sloane Ranger, supervolcano, trade route, urban renewal, urban sprawl, V2 rocket

See the boxed text for shops selling the town’s other gastronomic claim to fame, chocolate. Getting There & Away AIR Biarritz-Anglet-Bayonne airport ( 05 59 43 83 83; www.biarritz.aeroport.fr) is 5km southwest of central Bayonne and 3km southeast of the centre of Biarritz. It’s served by low-cost carriers including easyJet and Ryanair, as well as Air France, with daily domestic flights and flights to the UK, and regular flights to Ireland and other European destinations. Bus 6 links both Bayonne and Biarritz with the airport (buses depart roughly hourly). A taxi from the town centre costs around €15 to €20.


Lonely Planet France by Lonely Planet Publications

banking crisis, bike sharing scheme, British Empire, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, Columbine, double helix, Frank Gehry, G4S, glass ceiling, haute couture, haute cuisine, Henri Poincaré, Herbert Marcuse, Honoré de Balzac, illegal immigration, Jacquard loom, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Kickstarter, Louis Blériot, Louis Pasteur, low cost airline, low cost carrier, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, Murano, Venice glass, ride hailing / ride sharing, sensible shoes, Silicon Valley, supervolcano, trade route, urban renewal, urban sprawl, V2 rocket

Information Tourist office ( 08 20 42 64 64; www.bayonne-tourisme.com; place des Basques; 9am-7pm Mon-Sat, 10am-1pm Sun) Efficient office providing stacks of informative brochures and free bike rental, plus guided city tours. Getting There & Away Air Biarritz-Anglet-Bayonne airport ( 05 59 43 83 83; www.biarritz.aeroport.fr) is 5km southwest of central Bayonne and 3km southeast of the centre of Biarritz. It’s served by low-cost carriers including EasyJet and Ryanair, as well as Air France, with daily domestic flights and flights to the UK, and regular flights to Ireland, Finland, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Bus From place des Basques, ATCRB (www.transdev-atcrb.com) buses follow the coast to the Spanish border. There are nine services daily to St-Jean de Luz (€3, 40 minutes) and Hendaye (€3, one hour).