New Airbus execs promise change
The new management of Airbus on Monday vowed to repair strategic and operational problems dogging the European plane maker after a weekend shake-up at parent company EADS that forced out two top executives.
With Airbus already losing ground to its U.S. rival, the new team has just days to take decisive action if they are to avoid a further loss of credibility for the company, analysts say.
Louis Gallois, who replaced Noel Forgeard as France’s top executive at EADS, issued a joint statement with his German co-CEO Tom Enders, who survived the reshuffle, pledging to make a “recovery” at Airbus the top priority.
The crisis at the defense and aerospace group followed its announcement last month that its 555-seat A380 superjumbo was likely to suffer fresh delays of up to seven months.
Washington
Cost of gasoline rises 6 cents
The average U.S. retail price of gasoline jumped by more than 6 cents last week to $2.93 a gallon.
The federal Energy Information Administration said Monday that U.S. motorists paid $2.934 a gallon on average for regular grade last week, an increase of 6.5 cents from the previous week. Pump prices are 70.8 cents higher than a year ago.
Average retail gasoline prices peaked at $3.07 a gallon last September, reflecting the extreme tightness in the market following Hurricane Katrina, which knocked out refineries in the Gulf region as well as pipelines that deliver fuel to the East Coast and Midwest.
Gasoline prices were most expensive last week on the West Coast, averaging $3.108 per gallon, and cheapest in the Gulf Coast region, averaging $2.825 per gallon.
Washington
Fees imposed on prepaid call cards
The Federal Communications Commission has ruled that issuers of prepaid calling cards must pay connection fees and help subsidize phone service in rural areas.
The order won’t apply retroactively, however, so while AT&T Inc. will have to make such payments in the future, it won’t have to repay the $553 million in access fees – charges paid to other carriers to connect calls – and Universal Service Fund payments that its predecessor, then known as AT&T Corp., had withheld on phone calling cards.
Denver
Japanese officials check meat plant
Japanese officials began inspecting a Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in the northern Colorado city of Greeley Monday as part of a tour of U.S. facilities ahead of their nation’s plan to lift a ban on U.S. beef.
Representatives of Japan’s health and agricultural ministries arrived at the plant about 50 miles north of Denver before 8 a.m. and were expected to spend the day, Swift spokesman Sean McHugh said.
Members of Japanese media organizations gathered outside the Swift plant but neither Japanese nor company officials were expected to make public comments, McHugh said. The tour was closed to the news media.