Since Sept. 11, air travel forever changed
WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 (UPI) -- Sept. 11 left in its wake a much-changed U.S. air travel system, including lost time, higher costs and mixed emotions, observers said.
Although 81 percent of travelers indicated in a Reason-Rupe survey they now feel more secure at airports, more than 50 percent indicated they sacrificed too much in personal freedoms to achieve that sense of security, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
Changes since Sept. 11, 2001, at the nation's airports include a two-year slump in air travel that helped spur the rise in discount airlines, the Journal said. However, time spent stuck in airports has increased so dramatically that revenue at airports -- at restaurants, bars and gift shops -- has grown 40 percent to $1.4 billion per year from 2001 to 2009, Airports Council International North America reported.
Airlines have beefed up security but now charge innumerable fees for checked luggage, escorting a minor from town to town, for snacks, blankets, and securing a place in a line that boards passengers earlier than others -- call it the price of boredom -- which generally costs about $10, the Journal said.
Patdowns, luggage searches, shoe-removals and other hassles of the new security systems are only part of the changes air travel has seen in the past 10 years. In part, the question is how many changes will passengers tolerate and whether the changes will go too far.
"The further we get from 9/11, the less willing people are to tolerate it," says Kate Hanni, executive director of FlyersRights.org.
Greece, in a squeeze, expects protests
ATHENS, Greece, Sept. 10 (UPI) -- Destabilizing fiscal problems in Greece are the result of miscalculations by countries offering aid and by the struggling Greek government, an investor said.
"Everyone is turning the screw. There is a gradual loss of confidence across Europe in Greece's ability to deliver on its reforms," said David Lea, an analyst at Control Risks, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
A steady drumbeat of underestimated problems and overestimated solutions has kept the possibility of a Greek default in the forefront of many investor calculations for more than two years, the Journal reported.
Eurozone members took months to develop a strategy for helping Greece, and the first bailout program -- put together by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund -- was based on expectations that proved too optimistic. With Greece about to miss critical fiscal targets required in the $150 billion bailout assembled 16 months ago, a second bailout of similar size was assembled in July.
With the European Union's cumbersome system, the second bailout -- with funds needed sooner rather than later -- has yet to be ratified by several EU countries.
Auditors sent to Athens to see if Greece would meet targets required to receive its next tranche in the first bailout pulled back last month on growing concern the country would again fall short on various pledges.
Some would say Greece is already in default, as one of the key stipulations for the bailout included having creditors holding 90 percent of the volume of Greek bonds that would mature through 2020 agree to defer about $200 billion in payments.
So far, investors representing only 75 percent of the targeted bonds have agreed to the deal, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said this week.
That means Greece did not meet targets to stay solvent and has so far had trouble hitting targets that define its default.
A deputy managing director for the Institute of International Finance, Hung Tran, said he was confident the 90 percent target would be reached following meetings with investors in September.
In the meantime, Greece is bracing for another wave of national strikes, while Prime Minister George Papandreou holds onto a slim majority in Parliament and is contemplating a new round of austerity measures, including the possibility of mass layoffs of government workers.
More than 5,000 police have been assembled to control what is expected to be a mass protest at a speech Papandreou is to give Saturday in Thessaloniki.
Bank of America plans huge job cuts
CHARLOTTE, N.C., Sept. 10 (UPI) -- Bank of America Corp., the largest U.S. bank holding company, plans to cut 40,000 jobs, more than 10 percent of the workforce, executives say.
The Washington Post, citing interviews with three executives who have been told about the development, said Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan is to announce the plan Monday at an investor conference. They said the biggest impact will be in consumer banking.
"You're definitely going to see decreased service levels for consumers," Christopher Whalen, who follows the industry for Institutional Risk Analytics, told the Post. "They're talking about either closing branches or reducing the head count in the branches."
While Bank of America is struggling with the slow U.S. economy, it is also still dealing with problems stemming from its takeover of Countrywide in 2008. Bank of America faces lawsuits, including a recent one filed by federal regulators, over allegations that Countrywide provided misleading information when selling its home loans.
Bank of America, the largest bank in terms of assets, employs almost 300,000 people in the United States.
Banco Popular tries Anglicized name
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 10 (UPI) -- Puerto Rican bank Banco Popular said it is changing the name of its California branches, going with a culturally generic Popular Community Bank.
In California, "We're also located in high-density urban areas where it's very expensive to operate. So it didn't make sense anymore for us to just do Hispanics," said the bank's senior vice president of retail operations for North America, Manuel Chinea.
Banco Popular has already made the switch in Illinois, where it has 12 branches, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.
With that move, the bank found "no backlash" from the Hispanic community it traditionally serves, Chinea said.
With the Anglicized name, the bank attracted more non-Hispanic customers but did not lose Hispanic accounts, while the average value of the accounts rose 10 percent.
Popular Inc., with total assets of $38 billion, essentially operates four regional banks in the United States with 24 offices in California, 20 in Florida, 12 in Illinois and 40 in the New York-New Jersey area, the Times said.
Although its first branches in the continental United States opened in New York City in 1961, the bank is more cautious about making the name change there.
"We're keeping New York for the last. We've been there for 50 years and we know we have the highest brand equity there," Chinea said.
