American Airlines CFO says some travelers are avoiding Newark airport
American Airlines' chief financial officer said Thursday that some travelers are avoiding Newark Liberty International Airport for other options in the area after a spate of recent disruptions, but cautioned that the impact is "modest."
"There probably is some amount of book-away from Newark flights over into LaGuardia, JFK, maybe Philadelphia to a lesser extent," CFO Devon May said at the Wolfe Research conference.
The Federal Aviation Administration this week ordered airlines to temporarily cut flights at Newark to relieve congestion there as carriers grapple with a shortage of air traffic controllers, equipment outages and runway construction at the New Jersey airport. Bad weather has also added to disruptions in recent weeks.
American has a roughly 4% market share at Newark, according to the most recent data from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport along with LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport, both in Queens, New York.
"There's something happening there, but I think it's relatively modest when you think of the broader network," American's May said.
United Airlines dwarfs all other airlines at Newark with its nearly 70% share. That carrier had proactively announced cuts of 35 flights a day earlier this month to put more slack in the system.
Earlier this month, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the U.S. will spend billions to overhaul the aging U.S. air traffic control system.
President Donald Trump's tax bill, which passed the House early Thursday includes $12.5 billion for air traffic control modernization and staffing.
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Business of Fashion
40 minutes ago
- Business of Fashion
How to Revive a Sleeping Beauty Watch Brand
The dormant Danish watch company Urban Jürgensen was 'resurrected' in Los Angeles on Thursday following a $25 million revamp that its US backers hope will land it a seat at luxury watchmaking's top table inside five years. Acquired by a group of investors led by the American Rosenfield family in 2021 for an undisclosed sum, Urban Jürgensen was originally founded in Copenhagen in 1773 and is revered by watch connoisseurs and collectors. But outside that bubble, the name is largely unknown. According to its co-chief executive Alex Rosenfield, the bubble needs to burst. 'We think that what we're making are watches that people who love and care about watches will love and care about, but the world of people who can enjoy what we're doing is much larger than that,' Rosenfield told the Business of Fashion. 'Too often, watch companies make you feel like if you don't understand the escapement, we don't want to talk to you. Our goal is absolutely the opposite. It has to be beyond the obsessives.' Rosenfield is new to the watch industry. Qualified as a lawyer, he held a number of brand strategy roles in media and fashion before joining Guggenheim Partners, the US investment and financial services firm, which says it has more than $345 billion of assets under management. Rosenfield's father Andy is the firm's president and also an avid watch collector, buying his first Urban Jürgensen watch in the 1990s. Rosenfield Sr, who will continue to advise the company, and his philanthropist wife Betty hosted the relaunch at their $33 million Brentwood mansion. Rosenfield, who is based in Los Angeles, said his family had never intended to buy a watch company but stepped in to acquire Urban Jürgensen after hearing it had fallen on hard times, so they could return it to 'people who will love it and push it forward.' Urban Jürgensen's latest campaign. (Casey Zhang) The Rosenfields, who are reported to own 85 percent of the company, have assembled an impressive cast list. The company's other co-chief executive is Kari Voutilainen, the Finnish watchmaker considered one of the finest talents of his generation. Voutilainen has a minority stake in Urban Jürgensen, as well as his own independent watch company, which makes around 60 pieces a year. Urban Jürgensen's brand identity was developed by Winkreative in London and Chandelier Creative in New York under Rosenfield's direction, with a launch campaign called Time Well Spent shot by Ellen von Unwerth, the award-winning fashion photographer and filmmaker. The company is set to follow the high-value, low-volume model set by many of today's most successful independent watch brands. According to Rosenfield, in its first year, Urban Jürgensen will produce around 70 watches. Three models were introduced at Thursday's launch, with prices ranging from around $115,000 for the UJ-2 to $410,000 for the UJ-1, which will be limited to 75 pieces. Each has a new mechanical movement designed in-house by Voutilainen and hand-finished and assembled at the company's Swiss facility in the city of Biel/Bienne, where watchmaking giant Omega is based. Currently, it employs 20 people, around half of them watchmakers. 'The idea is to bring the glory of the Urban Jürgensen of the 19th century back,' Voutilainen said, referring to a period when the company made watches for the Danish royal court. 'This is just the starting block. Our aim is to make Urban Jürgensen a new reference point in fine watchmaking.' The revival of Urban Jürgensen comes in a busy season of watch brand rebirths. The private equity-backed Swiss company Breitling has in recent years acquired Universal Genève and Gallet, two dormant brands now slated for a comeback next year. Last year, Silvercity Brands, a subsidiary of the Indian conglomerate KDDL, revived the 18th century company Favre-Leuba, while the US founding partner of the mergers and acquisitions firm Duffy & Sweeney, Michael Sweeney, reintroduced the American watch brand Benrus in April. Rosenfield said he believed the recent glut of acquisitions and relaunches of forgotten dial names was sign that luxury buyers want a human connection to their purchases. 'We're so estranged from work with our hands and hand-making and things that are human, and now I think we need this [these brands] more than we ever did,' he said. Initially, Urban Jürgensen watches will be sold direct to consumer. No pre-orders had been taken, according to Rosenfield, who said that in time his strategy allowed for a few 'pop-ups and offices that serve as showrooms' that would be 'places to entertain as much as to sell', a model that has proved successful for Audemars Piguet, which has more than doubled its revenues over the past decade through its network of laid-back AP House concepts. Voutilainen said the ambition was to grow to between 1,000 and 1,200 watches a year in five years, putting it in territory currently dominated by a small number of high-end independents such as F. P. Journe, which was founded in 1999 and is now thought to turn over more than $100 million a year, according to Morgan Stanley estimates. With backing from the Rosenfields and Voutilainen overseeing product development, experts said Urban Jürgensen would shake up the luxury watch industry, currently dominated by Swiss companies. 'This is the best revival of a watch company since A. Lange & Söhne in 1994,' said Wei Koh, founder of the watch media brand Revolution, referring to the German brand now owned by the Richemont Group. 'I hope the Swiss companies are looking over the Atlantic and asking themselves what just happened,' said Kristian Haagen, the Danish founder of Timegeeks and author of multiple books on watchmaking. 'There's something really good and refreshing about it, something extremely un-Swiss. The Rosenfields are extremely wealthy, but they also know their watches.' Co-founders Andy & Alex Rosenfield. (Madison McGaw/ Recent revivals of historic dial names suggest the omens are good. In 2015, the billionaire Scheufele family that owns Chopard introduced Ferdinand Berthoud, named after the 18th century watchmaker. The company has won a number of prestigious industry awards with its small-scale watches, including the Aiguille d'Or at the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) in 2016, widely viewed as the highest honour in fine watchmaking. It was followed the same year by Czapek & Cie, a name from the 19th century. It too has won a GPHG award and grown a client base with its short-batch collections of hand-finished mechanical watches. The luxury watch industry's current travails appeared not to concern Urban Jürgensen's new owners. While many watch businesses have reported declining sales and volumes over the past 18 months, the pain has been at the lower end of the market. 'At the higher price point, it's not that big a problem,' said Voutilainen. Rosenfield acknowledged that the industry was in better health than it is now when his family acquired the brand in 2021. 'The [relaunch] timing was not planned for this moment,' he said. 'But our view was, when the watches are ready, we'll introduce them. And that is now. There will always be a market for things that are beautiful and unique and made to the highest standard. It just has to be something people want.' He added that his family's investment in Urban Jürgensen was long-term. 'Our hope would be to never sell it,' he said. 'We want to pass it down through generations.'
Newsweek
44 minutes ago
- Newsweek
US Close to High-Speed Rail Breakthrough
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. When the great and the good of the American high speed rail industry gathered in Washington, D.C. over May 13-15 for the U.S. High Speed Rail Association's (USHSR) 2025 annual conference, there was tremendous excitement tinged with anxiety. Several attendees told Newsweek they believe the U.S. could be on the verge of a high-speed rail breakthrough, setting the stage for the kind of comprehensive national system enjoyed in the likes of China, Japan and Western Europe. Ray LaHood, a Republican who served as Transportation Secretary under President Obama from 2009 to 2013, said if one of the two high-speed rail lines currently under construction is completed, it will prove "wildly popular" and boost support for high-speed rail across the nation. Other insiders agreed, but argued permitting reform and more explicit federal support will be needed first. There has been concern over the Trump administration's attitude toward high-speed rail. The conference took place one month after Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy announced $63.9 million in funding for a proposed Dallas to Houston route had been scrapped, and amid rumors that the California High Speed Rail line under construction between Los Angeles and San Francisco could lose federal support. This week, Duffy said there is "no viable path" to complete California High Speed Rail on time or on budget and warned the federal government could pull billions in funding. State of U.S. High-Speed Rail At present there aren't any high-speed rail networks—defined by the International Union of Railways (UIC) as operating at a minimum of 250 kilometers per hour (155 miles per hour) along specially built tracks—that are operational in the U.S. This compares unfavorably with the likes of Spain, Japan and France, which have around 2,460 miles, 1,830 miles and 1,740 miles of track respectively currently in use. Former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood predicted the first high-speed rail line in the U.S. will be "wildly popular." Former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood predicted the first high-speed rail line in the U.S. will be "wildly popular." Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty/Canva Most impressively, China, the chief geopolitical rival of the U.S., has gone from having virtually no high-speed rail lines to nearly 30,000 miles over the past couple of decades. Construction is currently underway on two high-speed rail lines in the U.S.—Brightline West, which will connect Las Vegas to Southern California, and California High Speed Rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco. A range of other projects have been proposed around the country, including plans to link Boston, New York and Washington, D.C. in the Northeast; Dallas, Houston and Fort Worth in Texas; and Chicago to East St. Louis in Illinois. Obstacles When asked why the U.S. had failed to build a high-speed network comparable to other advanced economies, industry experts told Newsweek there are major issues with permitting, financing and cross-party political support. California High Speed Rail has sparked particular controversy, with its cost ballooning from $34 billion to over $128 billion, while the completion date has been pushed back. Terry Hynes, an attorney specializing in rail infrastructure projects, argued planning issues in particular have bottled up capital investment. He is currently part of a team investigating how the permitting process could be sped up for USHSR. Addressing Newsweek, he said: "I've been in the business 46 years, making railroads, and I've been frustrated as hell representing the high-speed just takes forever. And there's private money that could be brought in. Wall Street's got a lot of money looking for infrastructure investments. "This is a wonderful infrastructure investment, the trouble is they see those permitting times. Eight years for environmental review, then you build for four years and in year 13 you're finally going to see some money. Nobody's going to invest in that." Former Obama era Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood speaking at the U.S. High Speed Rail Association's 2025 annual conference. Former Obama era Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood speaking at the U.S. High Speed Rail Association's 2025 annual conference. James Bickerton/Newsweek Hynes added: "The biggest issue to my mind is this permitting issue. The review period takes so long, the cost goes up and the more expensive it is for people doing a cost-benefit analysis, the analyses looks less beneficial." Brandon Wheeler, a senior program manager at the North Central Texas Council of Governments, a local government-based voluntary association, said a lack of national leadership has undermined high-speed rail construction across the U.S. Speaking to Newsweek, he said: "We don't have a national single point of leadership on that single point of leadership it really is a little bit hopscotch and we're making the best we can of it. "Until there is, like the interstate highway system, there's a national vision to create and you have a vision around the ability to move military and goods and those kinds of things. Until our airports get bad enough, until our roads get bad enough, until people have this massive outcry and we're able to concentrate them on something, we're going to have to find what that single vision is to rally around or we will fall behind the rest of the world." LaHood agreed, saying: "I think the success of these projects in Europe and Asia is largely due to the national government making investments but then encouraging the private sector. Once the national government makes a commitment, it's easier for the private sector then—they know it's going to be a stable project, they know their investment is going to be good." If You Build It They Will Come In 2023, Brightline, the first privately built rail line in the U.S. to open in nearly a century, began operations between Miami and Orlando in Florida and has since seen passenger numbers surge. While Brightline runs below the high-speed standard, LaHood said it showed Americans are ready to embrace new rail networks, and argued one successful project in the U.S. could turbocharge the whole industry. "If you look at the Brightline project in is wildly popular," he said. "They're putting more and more trains on that track every day because people like the idea that they don't have to get on the I95 and they don't have to travel on highways that are crowded with big trucks and cars... The U.S. High Speed Rail Association's 2025 annual conference in Washington, D.C. The U.S. High Speed Rail Association's 2025 annual conference in Washington, D.C. James Bickerton/Newsweek "If you build it they will come, if you build it it will be successful and I think that will be the case with Brightline West, Las Vegas to L.A., and I think it will be true San Francisco to L.A. I think they will be wildly popular. I really believe at this point if you build it they will come and the proof of that is Europe and Asia—their trains are wildly popular." Speaking to Newsweek, Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, who is advocating for a "Cascadia" high-speed rail line linking the city to Seattle in Washington and Vancouver in British Columbia, said: "Our system continues to be compacted and stagnant. "The great cities from around the world are all tending to go towards high-speed rail and we need an opportunity to unlock our economic renaissance, which is what's missing in our country right now, and high-speed rail would move us forward and get us completing again with the world." Trust Fund A number of industry insiders told Newsweek the formation of a federal government trust fund could provide the financial muscle for a major U.S. high-speed rail expansion. Asked what one development would most speed up U.S. high-speed rail, Jim Derwinski, executive director of Chicago rail system Metra, replied: "A trust fund so it's national, it's bipartisan so it doesn't change from administration to administration and it can be supported through the states as a national effort. "If you're going to build something, to compare it to Europe and Asia right now, it's got to have a national campaign right now." Arthur Sohikian is executive director of High Desert Corridor, a proposed high-speed rail line that would link Brightline West to the California High Speed Rail line. He expressed a similar view to Derwinski, telling Newsweek: "We have to energize the public to make that been trying to get a trust fund for rail since I started my career, it seems. "For whatever reason why the politicians won't grab onto that and won't do that, especially when you realize the Highway Trust Fund keeps diminishing as cars get more efficient, we're paying less in gas taxes, that fund is have to invest in this infrastructure as a nation, and until that happens, seriously, we're all going to be trying to do our little pieces." The U.S. High Speed Rail Association paid travel and hotel expenses for Newsweek reporter James Bickerton to attend its 2025 annual conference.
San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
How the Vatican manages money and where Pope Leo XIV might find more
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The world's smallest country has a big budget problem. The Vatican doesn't tax its residents or issue bonds. It primarily finances the Catholic Church's central government through donations that have been plunging, ticket sales for the Vatican Museums, as well as income from investments and an underperforming real estate portfolio. The last year the Holy See published a consolidated budget, in 2022, it projected 770 million euros ($878 million), with the bulk paying for embassies around the world and Vatican media operations. In recent years, it hasn't been able to cover costs. That leaves Pope Leo XIV facing challenges to drum up the funds needed to pull his city-state out of the red. Withering donations Anyone can donate money to the Vatican, but the regular sources come in two main forms. Canon law requires bishops around the world to pay an annual fee, with amounts varying and at bishops' discretion 'according to the resources of their dioceses.' U.S. bishops contributed over one-third of the $22 million (19.3 million euros) collected annually under the provision from 2021-2023, according to Vatican data. The other main source of annual donations is more well-known to ordinary Catholics: Peter's Pence, a special collection usually taken on the last Sunday of June. From 2021-2023, individual Catholics in the U.S. gave an average $27 million (23.7 million euros) to Peter's Pence, more than half the global total. American generosity hasn't prevented overall Peter's Pence contributions from cratering. After hitting a high of $101 million (88.6 million euros) in 2006, contributions hovered around $75 million (66.8 million euros) during the 2010's then tanked to $47 million (41.2 million euros) during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many churches were closed. Donations remained low in the following years, amid revelations of the Vatican's bungled investment in a London property, a former Harrod's warehouse that it hoped to develop into luxury apartments. The scandal and ensuing trial confirmed that the vast majority of Peter's Pence contributions had funded the Holy See's budgetary shortfalls, not papal charity initiatives as many parishioners had been led to believe. Peter's Pence donations rose slightly in 2023 and Vatican officials expect more growth going forward, in part because there has traditionally been a bump immediately after papal elections. New donors The Vatican bank and the city state's governorate, which controls the museums, also make annual contributions to the pope. As recently as a decade ago, the bank gave the pope around 55 million euros ($62.7 million) a year to help with the budget. But the amounts have dwindled; the bank gave nothing specifically to the pope in 2023, despite registering a net profit of 30 million euros ($34.2 million), according to its financial statements. The governorate's giving has likewise dropped off. Some Vatican officials ask how the Holy See can credibly ask donors to be more generous when its own institutions are holding back. Leo will need to attract donations from outside the U.S., no small task given the different culture of philanthropy, said the Rev. Robert Gahl, director of the Church Management Program at Catholic University of America's business school. He noted that in Europe there is much less of a tradition (and tax advantage) of individual philanthropy, with corporations and government entities doing most of the donating or allocating designated tax dollars. Even more important is leaving behind the 'mendicant mentality' of fundraising to address a particular problem, and instead encouraging Catholics to invest in the church as a project, he said. Speaking right after Leo's installation ceremony in St. Peter's Square, which drew around 200,000 people, Gahl asked: 'Don't you think there were a lot of people there that would have loved to contribute to that and to the pontificate?' In the U.S., donation baskets are passed around at every Sunday Mass. Not so at the Vatican. Untapped real estate The Vatican has 4,249 properties in Italy and 1,200 more in London, Paris, Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland. Only about one-fifth are rented at fair market value, according to the annual report from the APSA patrimony office, which manages them. Some 70% generate no income because they house Vatican or other church offices; the remaining 10% are rented at reduced rents to Vatican employees. In 2023, these properties only generated 35 million euros ($39.9 million) in profit. Financial analysts have long identified such undervalued real estate as a source of potential revenue. But Ward Fitzgerald, the president of the U.S.-based Papal Foundation, which finances papal charities, said the Vatican should also be willing to sell properties, especially those too expensive to maintain. Many bishops are wrestling with similar downsizing questions as the number of church-going Catholics in parts of the U.S. and Europe shrinks and once-full churches stand empty. Toward that end, the Vatican recently sold the property housing its embassy in Tokyo's high-end Sanbancho neighborhood, near the Imperial Palace, to a developer building a 13-story apartment complex, according to the Kensetsu News trade journal. Yet there has long been institutional reluctance to part with even money-losing properties. Witness the Vatican announcement in 2021 that the cash-strapped Fatebenefratelli Catholic hospital in Rome, run by a religious order, would not be sold. Pope Francis simultaneously created a Vatican fundraising foundation to keep it and other Catholic hospitals afloat. 'They have to come to grips with the fact that they own so much real estate that is not serving the mission of the church,' said Fitzgerald, who built a career in real estate private equity. ___ AP reporter Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed. ___
