Domestic automakers were already scheming about new ways to chop dealers–cutting costs to service them–as their market share
drained to Toyota and other foreign competitors. Now, an economy standing on the brakes could drive another round of dealer
consolidations that might not be a good deal for family-owned peddlers of metal.
An Indianapolis firm helping oversee construction of the city’s $1.2 billion midfield terminal is facing accusations from
Southwest Airlines that it failed to ensure the quality of a $12.4 million concrete apron at Long Island MacArthur Airport.
Two airlines that filed bankruptcy this month might cost creditor Indianapolis International Airport $1 million, airport financial records indicate. And high jet fuel prices that helped doom ATA Airlines and sent Frontier Airlines restructuring this month could become a bigger blip on Indianapolis’ radar later, if airline dominoes keep falling. The health of airlines that fly here bears watching because Indianapolis needs to sustain strong revenue streams from airline rents and fees to cover the cost of the $1.2 billion…
Prices of an alternative fuel that’s had patriotic and environmental appeal–but not an economic one for motorists–have been
flirting this month with gasoline on an energy-equivalent cost basis. The sudden but often fleeting price appeal of fuel “E85,”
a blend of ethanol with a dash of gasoline, is due largely to gas prices soaring to nearly $4 a gallon.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. said today it is planning an initial public offering for its Evansville-based baby formula division, Mead Johnson Nutritionals. The New York pharmaceutical giant would sell no more than 20 percent of Mead Johnson, however, retaining an equity interest of at least 80 percent. A registration statement is to be filed by the […]
A new current is blowing through Indiana today when it comes to wind energy. Indianapolis Power & Light said it has partnered with a French energy company to build a 100 megawatt wind farm near Fowler. The Benton County town is near Lafayette. Meanwhile, workers are erecting a 150-foot-tall wind turbine in Marion County to […]
Southwest Airlines will launch non-stop service to Denver, apparently smelling blood from bankrupt Frontier Airlines, which has flown the route from Indianapolis since 2005. Dallas-based Southwest will begin nonstop daily service to Denver on June 4. The carrier is the fourth-busiest at Indianapolis International, with 12.1 percent of traffic in 2007. Currently it offers 17 […]
SHELBY COUNTY BANKING on BEANS Integrity Biofuels in Morristown persevering despite run-up in soy prices MORRISTOWN-Two years ago this August, the biggest thing in this Shelby County town of 1,300 residents was not the Bunge North America soybean processing plant. Not even its three silos, each as big as an aircraft carrier planted upright by […]
Michael Grueninger, president of Grueninger Travel Group, has learned since his company bought Ambassadair in 2005 from now-defunct
ATA Airlines that many travelers once enamored with dirt-cheap fares they can book online want something more than low price.
They are willing to pay for service.
The first citywide union contract has been struck following negotiations between 1,500 janitors and five big companies that clean local businesses. The Service Employees International Union plans a ratification vote tomorrow at Central Christian Church in Indianapolis, the union announced this morning. Leslie Mendoza Kamstra, of the SEIU’s Indianapolis office, said she could not disclose […]
Duke Energy ratepayers have asked regulators for more time to study what they describe as an “unprecedented” way of paying for an energy-efficiency program the utility is proposing. They are concerned it might be a better deal for shareholders than customers. North Carolina-based Duke proposed its “save-a-watt” program last fall, arguing it will boost by more than 10 times the energy savings over existing efficiency options for its 777,000 Indiana customers. The program would offer such things as compact fluorescent…
Former ATA Airlines employees are trying to comb the wreckage of the bankrupt carrier, looking to grab their financial belongings
before managers and lenders cart off what little is left. Pilots and flight attendants are opposing retention bonuses for
managers who will spend the next several months turning out the lights of the 35-year-old carrier.
The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission will hold a public hearing April 14 to receive comments on a rate hike proposed by Anderson Municipal Light & Power. AML&P wants to raise base rates, which for the average residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt hours per month would grow to $69.40 from $62.75. The current rate was approved […]
Helped by a combination of plant closures and better emission controls, industrial air pollution in the nine-county region
has fallen 14 percent since the economic boom of the late 1990s, a federal database shows. But even with the reductions, the
metro area will struggle to comply with reduced ground-level ozone limits announced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
March 12.
Sales of specialty license plates benefiting colleges, not-for-profits and other Indiana organizations fell by nearly a third
last year after the state unveiled “In God We Trust” tags as a free alternative to the lime-green pastoral fields plates reviled
by many motorists.
A former Indianapolis Water executive who spent the last six years helping the United Nations find food for the starving has
returned and assembled the country’s largest underground utility locator company.
Northern Indiana motorists and Democratic opponents of Gov. Mitch Daniels were screaming bloody murder. Daniels in 2006 convinced the Legislature to lease the vital highway and plum of political patronage-the Indiana Toll Road-to an Australian-Spanish consortium for nearly $4 billion. Some managers at the Indiana Department of Transportation also were screaming-with panic. Despite winning the departmental lottery of all time-an annual budget for new roads would now quadruple from $213 million a year to $874 million by 2015-Daniels wanted 200…
Consumer groups didn’t get a ponytailed zealot to head the Office of Utility Consumer Counselor. No surprise there. Gov. Mitch Daniels has been fond of appointing ex-industry insiders to lead agencies charged with monitoring those same industries. What the OUCC gets in former Ameritech attorney David Stippler is, at the very least, a man who already knows the utility industry in Indiana. The Evansville native has argued before its regulatory agencies for many years. “They don’t have to forge a…
Despite challenges to the sector, durable goods manufacturing remained the largest portion of the state’s gross state product in 2006, according to analysis published recently in Indiana Business Review. Not only that, but the combination of durable goods – cars and other products designed to last at least three years – along with pharmaceuticals and […]
The chief executive officer of ATA Airlines’ parent company, Global Aero Logistics, has resigned, according to the Peachtree City, Ga., company. Subodh Karnik, who previously was CEO of Indianapolis-based ATA, was under pressure from New York investment firm MatlinPatterson to make ATA and its two sister carriers profitable. Global Aero’s most recently reported financials show […]
