| Dad Makes Ultimate Sacrifice for Daughter's Soccer Team
DALLAS, Texas. When she was younger, 14 year-old Indira Singh was content to spend sunny afternoons indoors reading in the comfort of her parents' air-conditioned home. Then she saw the movie "Bend It Like Beckham" about an Indian girl who falls in love with the game of soccer over the objections of her parents.
"It totally changed my life," she says. She began to play on Dallas-area youth teams, unhindered by parental interference that created the film's dramatic tension. "We want her to be with her friends, and have a normal American childhood," says her father, Sareesh Singh. "We will support her as far as she wants to go."
Her ultimate destination is indeed a long way from Dallas. Indira's team finished first in their Metro U-15 league and are on their way to a national tournament at Disney World--if they can come up with approximately $25,000 to cover airfare, hotels and meals for the girls while they stay at the Orlando, Florida resort.
On the Road Again: FedEx the liquids and skip the long lines
Ezzat Coutry has a new ritual before business trips: FedExing his after-shave lotion, shampoo, shaving cream and other bathroom must-haves to wherever he's heading. Charged with pursuing Caribbean hotel deals for Ritz-Carlton, Coutry is on the road about three days every week. And he wasn't going to let the new ban on liquids in carry-on luggage change his routine. ''It's really tough for me to check luggage,'' he said over breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton in Coconut Grove, his base of operations. ``I won't say I never check. But it's rare -- very, very rare.'' Coutry, a senior vice president at Ritz-Carlton, is part of a growing cadre of executives with the means (or expense accounts) to circumvent the Transportation Security Administration's crackdown on shampoo, shaving cream and other sundries.
Complaints about airport bags increase
Airlines mishandled a lot more bags after the Transportation Security Administration began restricting what passengers could carry onto airplanes following a summer terrorist scare. The number of complaints about late, damaged or lost baggage jumped by a third in August from a year earlier, even though the number of passengers increased only 5 percent. The rate of complaints increased 26 percent, to 8.08 per 1,000 passengers from 6.40 in August 2005, the U.S. Department of Transportation said yesterday. Travel analyst Terry Trippler said airlines were having problems handling bags promptly before the terrorist threat in London caused security officials to ban liquids, gels and other items from carry-on bags on Aug. 10. Most airlines were reporting very full airplanes, putting additional stress on baggage handling at a time when many carriers had cut their number of employees.
Mesa Air Can Fly in Hawaii
A federal bankruptcy judge Thursday denied Hawaiian Airlines' request to keep Mesa Air Group Inc.'s new low-cost go! carrier from issuing inter-island tickets for a year. Hawaiian alleges Mesa illegally used confidential information and trade secrets obtained during Hawaiian's Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings before launching go!. Judge Robert Faris said although the evidence "raises real doubts about the propriety of Mesa's conduct," he concluded Hawaiian did not meet the "stringent standard" for a preliminary injunction to be granted. But Faris said Hawaiian is free to seek similar relief as part of a final judgment. Phoenix-based Mesa launched go! airlines in June as the third inter-island jet carrier in Hawaii, entering the market dominated for decades by Hawaiian and Aloha Airlines and sparking an airfare war.
|
