Business in brief: Service woes lead JetBlue to trim profit outlook
JetBlue Airways Corp. on Wednesday cut its outlook for 2007 profits due to service disruptions caused by winter storms.
Pretax profit margin in 2007 is now expected to come in a range of 2 percent to 4 percent, chief executive David Neeleman said at the JPMorgan Aviation and Transportation Conference. That’s down from an earlier forecast of 3 percent to 5 percent, issued just before a major ice storm Feb. 14.
The New York-based airline reaffirmed its first-quarter outlook for an operating margin of negative 2 percent to negative 4 percent, taking storm-related costs into effect.
For full-year 2007, revenue per seat-mile is expected to increase by 8 percent to 10 percent, Neeleman told reporters.
Coeur d’Alene
CdA Mines building mill at Argentina facility
Coeur d’Alene Mines Corp. will spend $13.9 million building a flotation mill at the company’s Martha Mine in Argentina.
Processing ore on site will reduce the cost of producing silver from the Martha Mine, according to company officials. Currently, the ore is shipped to Coeur d’Alene Mines’ Cerro Bayo facilities in Chile for processing.
The company purchased the Martha Mine in 2002 for $2.5 million. Since that time, the mine has produced more than 9.5 million ounces of silver.
Minneapolis
FCC’s state ban on VoIP regulation upheld
A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld a decision by the Federal Communications Commission that barred states from regulating Internet-based phone services.
A three-judge panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the FCC’s determination in 2004 that companies like Vonage Holdings Corp. of Edison, N.J., provide an interstate service that puts them outside state control.
Vonage uses what’s called Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, which converts the sound of a voice into packets of data and reassembling them into sound at the other end of the call. Customers can make the calls almost anywhere a broadband Internet connection is available.