This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@xxxxxxxxx /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: IN AMERICA - IN THEATRES NOVEMBER 26 Fox Searchlight Pictures proudly presents IN AMERICA directed by Academy Award(R) Nominee Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot and In The Name of the Father). IN AMERICA stars Samantha Morton, Paddy Considine and Djimon Hounsou. For more info: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/inamerica \----------------------------------------------------------/ Memo Pad: Boeing Introduces Aircraft Improvements November 18, 2003 By JOE SHARKEY The Boeing Company yesterday announced interior design features for its proposed new 7E7 aircraft that underscore the importance many airlines say they are assigning to making improvements in passenger comfort in all cabins. Among the features Boeing is promoting as it looks for potential buyers for its in-development 7E7's are larger-than-average lavatories, wider seats and aisles than competing models, larger storage bins for carry-on bags, and what Boeing calls the biggest windows of any current commercial airplane, 19 inches high and 11 inches wide. JetBlue Airways is providing free Wi-Fi high-speed wireless Internet service at departure gates at its East Coast base in Terminal 6 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. The airline already has Wi-Fi service at Long Beach Airport near Los Angeles. In the latest indicator that travel of all sorts is coming back after two dismal years, occupancy rates at domestic hotels and motels between Thanksgiving and New Year will match those set in 2000, the peak travel year so far, according to a report yesterday by PricewaterhouseCoopers. That does not mean there will be no room at the proverbial inn. Occupancy rates for the four-day Thanksgiving holiday will average 51 percent, and those for the nine-day Christmas-New Year period will average 45 percent, returning to 2000 levels. But according to Smith Travel Research, hotel room supply has increased by 5 percent, or 212,000 rooms, since 2000. So this year's actual hotel room occupancies will be a record, said Bjorn Hanson, group leader at the PricewaterhouseCoopers hospitality and leisure division. "The strength of the holiday season reinforces our forecast for robust demand recovery in 2004" in lodging, he said. This has not been the best of years for business aviation, which is still lobbying intensely for permission to resume operations at Reagan Washington National Airport, where corporate aircraft and most other general aviation planes were banned from the air space as a security precaution after 9/11. Meanwhile, new plane sales remain down. Shipments of business jets were off about 32 percent in the first nine months of this year, compared with the period last year, according to the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, a trade group. Who is going to fly all those cushy new sleeper seats in all of those redesigned first- and business-class cabins on long-haul airlines? Virgin Atlantic claims to see a trend, as corporate travel budget constraints loosen a bit while international carriers battle for premium-cabin passengers. Virgin said it had an increase of 10 percent in traffic in its premium Upper Class seats from August through October. Virgin has said it is hoping to take premium-seat market share from its archrival British Airways, and from AMR's American Airlines and other non-British carriers who are now heavily promoting their refurbished business-class cabins on trans-Atlantic routes, the most lucrative for that class of travel. British Airways says it is sending its seven retired Concorde supersonic aircraft to be exhibited in these places: the Airbus U.K. plant near Bristol, England; the Manchester, England, airport; the Museum of Flight near Edinburgh, Scotland; Heathrow Airport; the Museum of Flight in Seattle; the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City; and Grantley Adams Airport in Barbados. British Air also said it had abandoned the idea of keeping one Concorde plane operational as a promotional vehicle for noncommercial, nonsupersonic flight at public events. The airline and Concorde's manufacturer, Airbus, decided that would not be feasible.JOE SHARKEY http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/18/business/18memo.html?ex=1070172217&ei=1&en=f6fbffcdae44fbe4 --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! 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