Sea-Tac picks up Icelandair flights to Reykjavik starting this summer
At a time when many airlines are cutting international flights, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport has picked up a new carrier.
Airport officials say Icelandair will begin four-times-a-week service between Seattle and Reykjavik on July 22.
That’s nine days before the end of flights between Seattle and Copenhagen on SAS, which is pulling out of the market after 42 years of service at Sea-Tac.
Icelandair plans to use a 183-seat Boeing 757-200ER for the 7 1/2 -hour flights.
Many airlines have cut back during the economic tailspin, especially on international routes, but an Icelandair spokesman says the company sees a good opportunity in the Pacific Northwest.
New York
Madoff brother has assets frozen amid separate investment lawsuit
A Nassau County judge on Wednesday temporarily froze the assets of Bernard Madoff’s brother after he was accused in a lawsuit of losing nearly a half-million dollars in a trust he administered.
The lawsuit claims Peter B. Madoff took $478,000 that belonged to Andrew Ross Samuels, 22, and invested it in his brother’s Ponzi scheme that fleeced investors of billions of dollars.
Samuels, a Brooklyn law student from Long Island, received the money from his grandfather, Martin J. Joel, who had placed it in the trust in 1997 to help pay for the young man’s education. It was supposed to be his inheritance.
Both Peter Madoff and Joel administered the trust, the lawsuit said. But after Joel died in 2003, Peter Madoff became the sole trustee and invested Samuels’ money in his brother’s firm, the lawsuit said.
Washington
Washington Post to continue to fall into the red in 2009
The Washington Post newspaper will follow a money-losing 2008 by losing “substantial money” in 2009 and will continue to cut costs, Post Co. Chairman Donald E. Graham said in a letter to shareholders included in the company’s annual report released Wednesday.
The Post Co. newspaper division – which is dominated by the flagship paper but also includes the Everett (Wash.) Herald, Express and a number of smaller papers – reported a $24.9 million operating loss last year.
As a whole, The Post Co. – which also owns the Kaplan Inc. education company, Cable One cable company, six television stations, Newsweek, Slate and a number of other publications – saw its 2008 revenue rise compared to 2007, though earnings dropped, because of charges related to the falling value of assets and one-time charges.