APRIL 2009

The Sydney Hearld - April 29, 2009
Only 7 swine flu deaths, not 152, says WHO
A member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has dismissed claims that more than 150 people have died from swine flu, saying it has officially recorded only seven deaths around the world.

Critical Alert: The Swine Flu Pandemic – Fact or Fiction?
In 1976 more people died from the Swine Flu Vaccine than Swine Flu!

FLYING PIGS, TAMIFLU AND FACTORY FARMS

By F. William Engdahl

If we are to believe what our trusted international media report, the world is on the brink of a global pandemic outbreak of a new deadly strain of flu, H1N1 as it has been labelled, or more popularly, Swine Flu. As the story goes, the outbreak of the deadly flu was first discovered in Mexico. According to press reports, after several days, headlines reported as many as perhaps 150 deaths in Mexico were believed caused by this virulent people-killing pig virus that has spread to humans and now is allegedly being further spread from human to human. Cases were being reported hourly from Canada to Spain and beyond. The only thing wrong with this story is that it is largely based on lies, hype and coverup of possible real causes of Mexican deaths.

One website, revealingly named Swine Flu Vaccine, reports the alarming news, ‘One out of every five residents of Mexico’s most populous city wore masks to protect themselves against the virus as Mexico City seems to be the epicenter of the outbreak. As many as 103 deaths have been attributed to the swine flu so far with many more feared to be on the horizon. The health department of Mexico said an additional 1,614 reported cases have been documented.’ We are told that the H1N1 ‘shares genetic material from human, avian and swine influenza viruses.[1]

Airports around the world have installed passenger temperature scans to identify anyone with above normal body temperature as possible suspect for swine flu. Travel to Mexico has collapsed. Sales of flu vaccines, above all Tamiflu from Roche Inc., have exploded in days. People have stopped buying pork fearing certain death. The World Health Organization has declared a ‘a public health emergency of international concern,’ defined by them as ‘an occurrence or imminent threat of illness or health conditions caused by bioterrorism, epidemic or pandemic disease, or highly fatal infectious agents or toxins that pose serious risk to a significant number of people.[2]

What are the symptoms of this purported Swine Flu? That’s not at all clear according to virologists and public health experts. They say Swine Flu symptoms are relatively general and nonspecific. ‘So many different things can cause these symptoms. it is a dilemma,’ says one doctor interviewed by CNN. ‘There is not a perfect test right now to let a doctor know that a person has the Swine Flu.’ It has been noted that most individuals with Swine Flu had an early on set of fever. Also it was common to see dizziness, body aches and vomiting in addition to the common sneezing, headache and other cold symptoms. These are symptoms so general as to say nothing.

The US Government’s Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta states on its official website, ‘Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza viruses that causes regular outbreaks in pigs. People do not normally get swine flu, but human infections can and do happen. Swine flu viruses have been reported to spread from person-to-person, but in the past, this transmission was limited and not sustained beyond three people.’ Nonetheless they add, ‘CDC has determined that this swine influenza A (H1N1) virus is contagious and is spreading from human to human. However, at this time, it is not known how easily the virus spreads between people.[3]

How many media that have grabbed on the headline ‘suspected case of Swine Flu’ in recent days bother to double check with the local health authorities to ask some basic questions? For example, the number of confirmed cases of H1N1 and their location? The number of deaths confirmed to have resulted from H1N1? Dates of both? Number of suspected cases and of suspected deaths related to the Swine Flu disease?

Some known facts

According to Biosurveillance, itself part of Veratect, a US Pentagon and Government-linked epidemic reporting center, on April 6, 2009 local health officials declared a health alert due to a respiratory disease outbreak in La Gloria, Perote Municipality, Veracruz State, Mexico.

They reported, ‘Sources characterized the event as a ‘strange’ outbreak of acute respiratory infection, which led to bronchial pneumonia in some pediatric cases. According to a local resident, symptoms included fever, severe cough, and large amounts of phlegm. Health officials recorded 400 cases that sought medical treatment in the last week in La Gloria, which has a population of 3,000; officials indicated that 60% of the town’s population (approximately 1,800 cases) has been affected. No precise timeframe was provided, but sources reported that a local official had been seeking health assistance for the town since February.’ What they later say is ‘strange’ is not the form of the illness but the time of year as most flu cases occur in Mexico in the period October to February.

The report went on to note, ‘Residents claimed that three pediatric cases, all under two years of age, died from the outbreak. However, health officials stated that there was no direct link between the pediatric deaths and the outbreak; they stated the three fatal cases were "isolated" and "not related" to each other.’

Then, most revealingly, the aspect of the story which has been largely ignored by major media, they reported, ‘Residents believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area. They believed that the farms, operated by Granjas Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, which in turn led to the disease outbreak. According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to "flu." However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms.[4]

Since the dawn of American ‘agribusiness,’ a project initiated with funding by the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1950’s to turn farming into a pure profit maximization business, US pig or hog production has been transformed into a highly efficient, mass production industrialized enterprise from birth to slaughter. Pigs are caged in what are called Factory Farms, industrial concentrations which are run with the efficiency of a Dachau or Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They are all conceived by artificial insemination and once born, are regularly injected with antibiotics, not because of illnesses which abound in the hyper-crowded growing pens, but in order to make them grow and add weight faster. Turn around time to slaughter is a profit factor of highest priority. The entire operation is vertically integrated from conception to slaughter to transport distribution to supermarket.

Granjas Carroll de Mexico (GCM) happens to be such a Factory Farm concentration facility for hogs. In 2008 they produced almost one million factory hogs, 950,000 according to their own statistics. GCM is a joint venture operation owned 50% by the world’s largest pig producing industrial company, Smithfield Foods of Virginia.[5] The pigs are grown in a tiny rural area of Mexico, a member of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and primarily trucked across the border to supermarkets in the USA, under the Smithfields’ family of labels. Most American consumers have no idea where the meat was raised.

Now the story becomes interesting.

Manure Lagoons and other playing fields

The Times of London interviewed the mother of 4-year-old Edgar Hernandez of La Gloria in Veracruz, the location of the giant Smithfield Foods hog production facility. Their local reporter notes, ‘Edgar Hernández plays among the dogs and goats that roam through the streets, seemingly unaware that the swine flu he contracted a few weeks ago — the first known case — has almost brought his country to a standstill and put the rest of the world on alert. ‘I feel great,’ the five-year-old boy said. ‘But I had a headache and a sore throat and a fever for a while. I had to lay down in bed.’’

The reporters add, ‘It was confirmed on Monday (April 27 2009-w.e.) that Edgar was the first known sufferer of swine flu, a revelation that has put La Gloria and its surrounding factory pig farms and ‘manure lagoons’ at the centre of a global race to find how this new and deadly strain of swine flu emerged.[6]

That’s quite interesting. They speak of ‘La Gloria and its surrounding factory pig farms and ‘manure lagoons.’’ Presumably the manure lagoons around the LaGloria factory pig farm of Smithfield Foods are the waste dumping place for the feces and urine waste from at least 950,000 pigs a year that pass through the facility. The Smithfield’s Mexico joint venture, Norson, states that alone they slaughter 2,300 pigs daily. That’s a lot. It gives an idea of the volumes of pig waste involved in the concentration facility at La Gloria.

Significantly, according to the Times reporters, ‘residents of La Gloria have been complaining since March that the odour from Granjas Carroll’s pig waste was causing severe respiratory infections. They held a demonstration this month at which they carried signs of pigs crossed with an X and marked with the word peligro (danger).[7] There have been calls to exhume the bodies of the children who died of pneumonia so that they could be tested. The state legislature of Veracruz has demanded that Smithfield’s Granjas Carroll release documents about its waste-handling practices. Smithfield Foods reportedly declined to comment on the request, saying that it would ‘not respond to rumours.[8]

A research compilation by Ed Harris reported, ‘According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to ‘flu.’ However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms.[9] That would imply that the entire Swine Flu scare might have originated from the PR spin doctors of the world’s largest industrial pig factory farm operation, Smithfield Foods.

The Vera Cruz-based newspaper La Marcha blames Smithfield’s Granjos Carroll for the outbreak, highlighting inadequate treatment of massive quantities of animal waste from hog production.[10] Understandably the company is perhaps more than a bit uncomfortable with the sudden attention. The company, which supplies the McDonald’s and Subway fast-food chains, was fined $12.3 million in the United States 1997 for violating the Clean Water Act. Perhaps they are in a remote tiny Mexican rural area enjoying a relatively lax regulatory climate where they need not worry about being cited for violations of any Clean Water Act.

Factory Farms as toxic concentrations

At the very least the driving force for giant industrial agribusiness outsourcing of facilities to third world sites such as Veracruz, Mexico has more to do with further cost reduction and lack of health and safety scrutiny than it does with improving the health and safety quality of the food end product. It has been widely documented and subject of US Congressional reports that large-scale indoor animal production facilities such as that of Granjos Carroll are notorious breeding grounds for toxic pathogens.

A recent report by the US Pew Foundation in cooperation with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health notes, ‘the method of producing food animals in the United States has changed from the extensive system of small and medium-sized farms owned by a single family to a system of large, intensive operations where the animals are housed in large numbers in enclosed structures that resemble industrial buildings more than they do a traditional barn. That change has happened primarily out of view of consumers but has come at a cost to the environment and a negative impact on public health, rural communities, and the health and well-being of the animals themselves. [11]

The Pew study notes, ‘The diversified, independent, family-owned farms of 40 years ago that produced a variety of crops and a few animals are disappearing as an economic entity, replaced by much larger, and often highly leveraged, farm factories. The animals that many of these farms produce are owned by the meat packing companies from the time they are born or hatched right through their arrival at the processing plant and from there to market.[12]

The study emphasizes that application of ‘untreated animal waste on cropland can contribute to excessive nutrient loading, contaminate surface waters, and stimulate bacteria and algal growth and subsequent reductions in dissolved oxygen concentrations in surface waters.[13]

That is where the real investigation ought to begin, with the health and sanitary dangers of the industrial factory pig farms like the one at Perote in Veracruz. The media spread of panic-mongering reports of every person in the world who happens to contract ‘symptoms’ which vaguely resemble flu or even Swine Flu and the statements to date of authorities such as WHO or CDC are far from conducive to a rational scientific investigation.

Tamiflu and Rummy

In October 2005 the Pentagon ordered vaccination of all US military personnel worldwide against what it called Avian Flu, H5N1. Scare stories filled world media. Then, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced he had budgeted more than $1 billion to stockpile the vaccine, Oseltamivir sold under the name, Tamiflu. President Bush called on Congress to appropriate another $2 billion for Tamiflu stocks.

What Rumsfeld neglected to report at the time was a colossal conflict of interest. Prior to coming to Washington in January 2001, Rumsfeld had been chairman of a California pharmaceutical company, Gilead Sciences. Gilead Sciences held exclusive world patent rights to Tamiflu, a drug it had developed and whose world marketing rights were sold to the Swiss pharma giant, Roche. Rumsfeld was reportedly the largest stock holder in Gilead which got 10% of every Tamiflu dose Roche sold. [14] When it leaked out, the Pentagon issued a curt statement to the effect that Secretary Rumsfeld had decided not to sell but to retain his stock in Gilead, claiming that to sell would have indicated something to hide.’ That agonizing decision won him reported added millions as the Gilead share price soared more than 700% in weeks.

Tamiflu is no mild candy to be taken lightly. It has heavy side effects. It contains matter that could have potentially deadly consequences for a person’s breathing and often reportedly leads to nausea, dizziness and other flu-like symptoms.

Since the outbreak of Swine Flu Panic (not Swine Flu but Swine Flu Panic) sales of Tamiflu as well as any and every possible drug marketed as flu related have exploded. Wall Street firms have rushed to issue ‘buy’ recommendations for the company. ‘Gimme me a shot Doc, I don’t care what it is...I don’ wanna die...’

Panic and fear of death was used by the Bush Administration skilfully to promote the Avian Flu fraud. With ominous echoes of the current Swine Flu scare, Avian Flu was traced back to huge chicken factory farms in Thailand and other parts of Asia whose products were shipped across the world. Instead of a serious investigation into the sanitary conditions of those chicken factory farms, the Bush Administration and WHO blamed ‘free-roaming chickens’ on small family farms, a move that had devastating economic consequences to the farmers whose chickens were being raised in the most sanitary natural conditions. Tyson Foods of Arkansas and CG Group of Thailand reportedly smiled all the way to the bank.

Now it remains to be seen if the Obama Administration will use the scare around so-called Swine Flu to repeat the same scenario, this time with ‘flying pigs’ instead of flying birds. Already Mexican authorities have reported that the number of deaths confirmed from so-called Swine Flu is 7 not the 150 or more bandied in the media and that most other suspected cases were ordinary flu or influenza.

1 Health Advisory, accessed in http://www.swine-flu-vaccine.info/.

2 Ibid.

3 Centers for Disease Control, Swine Influenza and You, accessed in http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/swineflu_you.htm.

4 Biosurveillance, Swine Flu in Mexico- Timeline of Events, April 24, 2009, accessed in http://biosurveillance.typepad.com/biosurveillance/2009/04/swine-flu-in-mexico-timeline-of-events.html.

5 Smithfield Foods website, accessed in http://www.smithfieldfoods.com/our_company/our_family/Norson.aspx.

6 Ruth Maclean in La Gloria and Chris Ayres in Mexico City, I had a headache and fever’ says boy who survived, London Times, April 28, 2009.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 Ed Harris, Bloggers Examine Environmental Role in Mexico Swine Flu Outbreak, April 27, 2009, accessed in

http://www.planetthoughts.org/?pg=pt/Whole&qid=2870.

10 Ibid.

11 The Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm

Animal Production in America, accessed in http://www.ncifap.org/_images/PCIFAPFin.pdf.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 F. William Engdahl, Is Avian Flu another Pentagon Hoax?, GlobalResearch, October 30, 2005.

Reuters - April 29, 2009
Containing Flu Is Not Feasible, Specialists Say
“Containment is no longer a feasible option,” Dr. Keiji Fukuda, deputy director general of the World Health Organization, announced Monday night in Geneva after a meeting of the agency’s emergency committee on the spreading swine flu virus. “The world should focus on mitigation. We recommend not closing borders or restricting travel.”

Reuters - April 27, 2009
Mexico hit by 6.0 magnitude quake
MEXICO CITY, April 27, (Reuters) - Southern Mexico was hit by a 6.0 magnitude earthquake on Monday that shook buildings in the capital, Mexico City, but there were no immediate reports of deaths or damage.

The Christian Science Monitor - April 27, 2009
Four-year-old could hold key in search for source of swine flu outbreak
A Mexican village whose inhabitants were overwhelmed by an outbreak of respiratory illness starting in February has emerged as a possible source of the swine flu outbreak which has now spread across the world.

The Christian Science Monitor - April 27, 2009
Mexico tourism braces for swine flu slowdown
Mexico City - Europeans today were told to avoid travel to Mexico unless essential. The biggest tour operators in Germany and Japan canceled all trips to Mexico.

HuffingtonPost.com - April 27, 2009
SWINE FLU: Scramble to stop spread among travelers
MEXICO CITY — The World Health Organization raised its global alert level Monday, signaling the swine flu virus was spreading from human to human in community outbreaks, but it stopped short of declaring a full-blown pandemic.

The Christian Science Monitor - April 26, 2009
How Mexico is tackling the swine flu
Mexico City - At the epicenter of a swine flu health crisis that has the world on alert, Mexico is working hard to maintain public calm.

Reuters - April 26, 2009
President Obama Says "No More Taking Off Your Shoes"
IDO SECURITY INC ("IDOI-L") - President Obama Says "No More Taking Off Your Shoes" IDO Security, Inc., developer of the innovative MagShoe(TM) "shoes-on" weapons metal detection system, announced its response to interesting comments that were made by President Obama at his recent press conference. Speaking to reporters at a White House Press Conference, the President said, "No racing to an airport and across a terminal, no delays, no sitting on the tarmac, no lost luggage, no taking off your shoes."

Reuters - April 26, 2009
World on alert as Mexico flu epidemic fear grows
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Governments around the world rushed on Sunday to check the spread of a new type of swine flu that has killed up to 81 people in Mexico and infected around a dozen in the United States.

CNNhealth.com - April 25, 2009
More cases of swine flu reported; WHO warns of 'health emergency'
(CNN) -- A potentially deadly new strain of the swine flu virus cropped up in more places in the United States and Mexico on Saturday, in what the World Health Organization called "a public health emergency of international concern."

USA Today - April 25, 2009
Meltdown 101: Is the airline slump leveling off?
In the past week, the largest U.S. airlines have reported staggering losses and a sharp downturn in traffic during the first quarter. But some airline executives think the worst might be over.

USA Today - April 25, 2009
US Airways, Alaska Air add checked bag fees
US Airways (LCC) and Alaska Airlines (ALK) said Thursday they were imposing new charges on passengers to check their bags, adding to a growing array of fees to fly.

msnbc - April 24, 2009
Caribbean islands report big drops in tourism
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - At least five Caribbean countries have suffered double-digit drops in tourist visits this year as the global economic slowdown wreaks havoc on the region's top industry, a researcher said Thursday.

USA Today - April 24, 2009
Airlines feel pinch of falling business traffic
MINNEAPOLIS — First-quarter airline results are in and it's nearly all red ink with JetBlue and AirTran the notable exceptions.

Aviation Today - April 22, 2009
United Airlines Launches Customer Carbon Offset Program
CHICAGO, April 22 -- United Airlines today launched a carbon offset program designed to give customers the opportunity to help protect the environment by supporting renewable energy and reforestation projects.

Economist.com - April 22, 2009
Delta's new charge
AND the next airline fee is? Delta’s new $50 charge for economy-class passengers wanting to check a second bag on international flights.

TravelDailyNews.com - April 14, 2009
AVIAREPS wins Aeromexico as new client
Aeromexico, Mexico’s largest domestic airline, has commissioned AVIAREPS as its representative on a total of seven markets - the United Kingdom, Benelux, Scandinavia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Venezuela and Australia.

Reuters - April 14, 2009
Obama visit signals U.S. support for Mexico
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's visit to Mexico this week is a signal of support for President Felipe Calderon and his efforts to confront violent drug trafficking gangs, White House officials said on Monday.

USA Today - April 14, 2009
US Airways shifts plans from growth to survival
TEMPE, Ariz. — In 2005, US Airways (LCC) was going to be a low-cost carrier. In 2007, it was going to be a global behemoth.

USA Today - April 13, 2009
Aeromexico adding service to New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — AeroMexico is returning international flight service to New Orleans for the first time since Hurricane Katrina.

BBC News - April 8, 2009
Airport brings in £1 drop-off fee
Luton Airport is to introduce a £1 charge for dropping off passengers at its terminal building.

M E X I C O ' S   D R U G   W A R

FACTS: The biggest danger to tourists traveling to Mexico is slipping on hotel room floors and other slippery flooring around the hotels. The biggest risk outside the hotel is tripping on the beach. Numerous people walk along the beach not watching where they are going and trip in holes causing serious damage.

People who rent those little scooters wipe out all the time and get severely injured as well. Those are the major dangers traveling to Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Mayan Riviera, Holbox, Cozumel and basically anywhere in the Yucatan Peninsula.

The media has recently been creating the false impression that the entire country of Mexico is a battlefield with war raging against armies of drug mobsters. They'd have everyone believe that gun battles are happening every day, all over the country. Repeatedly this reporting is including sensationalism by integrating words like "terrorism" and "terrorists" in the news stories.

Comparing the Mexican drug cartels to terrorists is simply a misguided scare tactic. The Mexican drug cartels are not fighting to overthrow the government and seize state power. Their objective is to continue their criminal racket unhindered and supply drugs to the U.S. and Canada.

Compare U.S. and Mexico on Global Terrorism And Suspicious Events Map.

Violence in the "Mexican drug war" is violence directed at people involved in the drug supply business and those trying to stop it.

As Mexico's supply of oil diminishes the country is turning to tourism more and more in an effort to replace reducing revenues from oil exports.

Many of Mexico's wealthiest people [mobsters included] have large investments in the tourism industry. A large section of Mexico's population derives an income from the tourism industry.

The drug supply industry is not as large as the tourism industry and the number of people who support the tourism industry in Mexico including foreign investors [and mobsters] far out-weigh the number of active participants in the drug war.

The Investors in Mexico's tourism industry do not want major tourist areas disrupted. Major tourist zones are the most secure areas in the country.

[The U.S./Mexican border tourist zones in Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez could better be described as "entry points".]

SO WHAT IS GOING ON?

In a political move to put pressure on the Mexican government to play a more active roll in policing the U.S.-Mexican border the U.S. government is putting pressure on Mexico's government by issuing Travel Advisories warning potential travelers of some kind of danger traveling in Mexico [Canada followed].

U.S. Department Of State
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada

American and Canadians make up over 60% of the tourism to Cancun [and surrounding area]. Targeting American and Canadian tourists with Travel Advisories to achieve a political goal is simply blackmail.

Mexico is a big country with lots of people [109,955,400 (July 2008 est.)]. A minute number of thugs are killing each other in a small area along the U.S. border with targeted assassinations in Mexico City and Monterrey. This has been going on for a long time, years. The only thing new about it is the media's attention to it now.

If you have traveled to Cancun or anywhere in the area in the last twenty years did you realize there was a drug war going on, while you were there? [It has been going on that long.]

If you are not involved in narco activity and not traveling to any of the border cities such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez [both major transit points for drugs entering the United States and for money leaving the U.S.], then you really have nothing to worry about, except having enough suntan lotion.

Cancun and the Mayan Riviera are on the other side of the country. These areas are no more dangerous than any major city in "Canada" probably safer.

If you have been traveling to the Yucatan over the years, you will notice nothing different. Same-old same-old.

Further, the Homeland Security Department's attache to Mexico said the violence in Mexico is not as dangerous to U.S. tourists as has been portrayed.

Alonzo Pena said the violence is in isolated areas of the country and only affects the people involved in criminal activity. He said the violence is not affecting U.S. citizens visiting Mexico and Americans should not cancel their vacations in the country.

Homeland Security Has Plan for Border Chaos
Mexico Tourist Areas Safe, Hotels Say
Official: Mexico not in danger of collapse

T R A V E L   N E W S

Aviation Today - April 6, 2009
Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico Reports Passenger Traffic Decrease of 20.4% for March 2009
GUADALAJARA, Mexico, April 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico, S.A.B. de C.V. (NYSE: PAC; BMV: GAP) ("the Company" or "GAP") announced preliminary terminal passenger traffic figures for the month of March 2009 compared to traffic figures for March 2008.

msnbc - April 6, 2009
5 creative new car rental fees to avoid
Beleaguered companies are finding fresh ways to reach into your wallet.

TravelDailyNews.com - April 6, 2009
Britons say 'Yes' to child-free zones on planes
A survey by TripAdvisor, the world’s most popular and largest travel community, has revealed that 79% of Britons believe there should be child-free zones on planes.

TravelDailyNews.com - April 6, 2009
Continental Airlines voted 'Best Airline: North America' in 2009 Skytrax World Airline Awards
Continental Airlines announced that for the second year in a row it has been named "Best Airline: North America" in the Skytrax 2009 World Airline Awards.

Reuters - April 6, 2009
Mexico's Asur traffic drops 8.7 pct in March
MEXICO CITY, April 6 (Reuters) - Mexican airport operator Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste said on Monday its passenger traffic dropped 8.7 percent in March compared with the same period of last year.

USA Today - April 6, 2009
Hassle-free flying? Airline ratings soar as traffic declines
U.S. airlines' operational performance improved in 2008 as they flew fewer seats amid an industry downturn, according to an annual research report released Monday.

Reuters - April 6, 2009
Mexican airport operators hit by Easter shift
MEXICO CITY, April 6 (Reuters) - Mexico's two leading airport operators posted on Monday a sharp decrease in their March passenger traffic, hurt by a shift in the Easter holiday.

USA Today - April 5, 2009
Mexico spring-break traffic slows along Calif. border
PLAYAS DE ROSARITO, Mexico (AP) — A few years ago, thousands of American college students packed the streets outside Playas de Rosarito's hottest beach bars during spring break. Cavernous clubs offered concerts, bikini contests and all-night drinking.

Economist.com - April 4, 2009
Other victims of the downturn in business travel
THE SLOWDOWN in business travel has been hurting a lot of companies. While airlines and hotel chains are the most obvious victims, they're not the only ones. Newspapers, too, are feeling the pinch.

Economist.com - April 3, 2009
Rich get poorer, travel less
ALTHOUGH the rich tend to have more money than the rest of us (that's what makes them rich), they too are being hit hard by these credit-crunchy times, according to a 14-page special report in this week's Economist.

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