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Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Jun 11, 2012
June 11, 2012
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The Airlines:
Long lines, lost luggage, bad food, extra fees, and oodles of delays --with all of our complaints about air travel these days, you probably think the airlines are making scads of cash from your airfare. But, it turns out, you probably think wrong.
According to some number-crunching led by the Wall Street Journal, if a hypothetical domestic flight had 100 seats and each ticket cost $146 (the U-S domestic average), it would take the airline 99 paying customers to break even; only one seat would be their profit.
The biggest cost is fuel, taking about 29 seats (although other research puts fuel as high as 34 percent of costs), followed by salaries at 20 seats. Ownership costs (buying and leasing, as well as insurance) are 16 seats, government taxes and fees another 14, and maintenance 11.
Nine seats were labeled "other," for catering, gate fees, lost baggage replacement, and the like.
That leaves just one seat left for the airline.
"It's a crazy business," said one former airline CEO. "There are so many costs you could never articulate it all." (Maiman)Mall Alert:
Are you a fan of that "Honey Badger" viral video?
Now, Red Mango, a frozen yogurt company, is jumping on the bandwagon with Honey Badger frozen yogurt (which is actually just nonfat frozen yogurt and honey) with the advertising slogan: "Try it... or not. We don't care." (A take-off of the video, in which the narrator, Randall, says "Honey Badger don't care).Like you really care:
Butt-nekkid pictures of "Jersey Shore" star NICOLE "Snooki" POLIZZI are now available on the internet. If you want to see them, that is.
Snooki's publicist released a statement Friday confirming that the shots in an untied robe were, indeed, of his client, telling E! News "Clearly these are old and personal photos that were not meant for the public. It's a shame someone decided to leak them for obvious personal gain."Popped by the cops:
Meanwhile, DEENA CORTESE got tossed in jail and JENNI "J-WOWW" FARLEY was in a humongous bar fight over the weekend in separate incidents on the Jersey Shore.
J-Woww was reportedly involved in a massive bar brawl Friday night at the Bamboo Bar in Seaside Heights with co-stars PAULY 'Pauly D' DELVECCHIO, RONNIE ORTIZ-MAGRO and MIKE 'The Situation' SORRENTINO. An onlooker told Us Weekly, "Jenni's boyfriend beat up a few guys, Pauly knocked some guy out, (and) Ronnie (and) Sitch were all there as well, fighting off guys. Jenni sprained her ankle. It was rough."
Then, Saturday night, E! News says Deena was at a bar in New Egypt, NJ. And although she walked out under her own power, she started to dance in traffic, and when a driver attempted to drive around her, she wouldn't let him. That's when she was arrested for disorderly conduct, taken to jail and then released.Fashion Emergency:
A new study says women think about fashion an average of 91 time a day. To put it another way... that's more than four times as often as men think about sex. The Huffington Post says a British retailer conducted the poll online. They asked women how often their minds wandered to the important things in life: window shopping, cruising websites for fashion sales and flipping through the fashion magazines. The study found that:
--11 percent of British women think about fashion more often than they think about friends, family and work.
--A fashion thought manages to creep into women's minds for an hour and 19 minutes every day. That means that every 11 minutes and 23 seconds a woman is thinking about style.
--The number one clothing item at the top of the thinking list? Not shoes. Dresses. (Bartha)Stars and their movies:
Congrats to DONALD SUTHERLAND, who picked up the French title of Commander of the Arts at a ceremony in Paris last week for his contribution to the movies. Sutherland, who's 76 years old now, has done over 100 films, and thanked his French wife for his appreciation of French culture, saying she had introduced him to French "cinema, but also cheese and baguettes."
Other past recipients of the award include AUDREY HEPBURN, MICHAEL CAINE, SEAN CONNERY, ROGER MOORE and CLINT EASTWOOD. This is *not* the same award given to JERRY LEWIS --that one is the Légion d'Honneur. -
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