Air Canada flight to Vancouver diverted to Tokyo after crack in pilot window - Global News

An Air Canada flight from Shanghai to Vancouver was diverted to Tokyo after a crack developed in one of the pilot’s windows, the airline confirmed Sunday.Vancouver International Airport says the flight was expected to arrive at 11:40 a.m. before it was diverted to Narita International Airport.A spokesperson with Air Canada says the windows are double-paned and the diversion was a precautionary measure.The plane was a Boeing 787 carrying 287 passengers, none of whom were injured.READ MORE: 37 believed injured after turbulence forces Vancouver-Australia flight to divert to HawaiiAir Canada says the passengers are staying in hotels while the aircraft is repaired.It says the plane is set to leave Tokyo for Vancouver on Monday.The cause of the crack is not yet known. Air Canada did not share any information about what may have happened but is investigating.—With files from the Canadian PressWATCH (July 11, 2019): 37 passengers injured by turbulence on Air Canada flight

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September 02, 2019 at 06:04AM

Argentina returns to currency controls as debt crisis spirals - Reuters

Payout Coming To Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche and Bentley Owners - CarBuzz

Despite the settlement not being an admission of guilt, Volkswagen is adjusting fuel economy figures by one mile per gallon to reflect US labeling requirements on 98,000 of its vehicles sold between 2013 and 2017.

The figures being paid out are subject to court approval but, as it stands, those affected will be reimbursed for extra money spent on gas based on the alleged false fuel economy ratings. Length of legal ownership will be factored into individual payouts, but it works out from $5.40 to $24.30 per owner for each month they leased or owned their vehicle but with a maximum of $518.40 to $2,332.80. Owners will be able to submit a claim once the process to do so is ready.

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September 02, 2019 at 12:54AM

Confusion trips up sweeping overhaul of Canada Labour Code - CBC News

Confusion trips up labour reform roll-out, with some stakeholders in the dark - Delta-Optimist

Chris Rauenbusch says he doesn't know if his employer can summon him to work on a day off after a series of sweeping federal labour reforms went into effect Sunday.

"I don't know if I am entitled to take a break during a 14-hour shift," said the 39-year-old flight attendant, who heads WestJet’s union local in Calgary.

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His quandary follows a request by employers that Ottawa make some last-minute exemptions or delays to its new rules. The request has left hundreds of thousands of workers and their bosses in sectors from airlines to trucking to telecommunications unclear about whether they are fully covered by the Canada Labour Code overhaul.

As confusion mounted in the lead-up to the changes, Employment Minister Patty Hajdu said certain interim exemptions would apply — at least until further tweaks can be made after the October election — but acknowledged the government was still hammering out who they will ultimately include.

"I can’t actually speak to which employers and which [employee] classes will be subject to these limited exemptions because that is still being worked out with the department right now, and I’m looking forward to their advice," Hajdu said days before the regulations started to kick in.

"I’m not certain exactly when I’ll have those recommendations."

The new rules, which apply to the 904,000 workers in federally regulated sectors from banking to the civil service, usher in a suite of changes that mandate new personal leaves and longer bereavement and vacation periods, among other things.

Industry representatives say some of the amendments would delay shipments, cancel flights and hurt the country's economy, while labour groups argue they are simply asking for reasonable working conditions.

"If you’re a trucking operation and your shipment gets cancelled, you can’t just send the truck anyway. If somebody is sick, you may need somebody else to go," said Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).

Rules that fail to take that into account mean "the entire Canadian shipping network and supply chain is put at risk," according to a May 13 letter to the employment minister from an industry association, Federally Regulated Employers — Transportation and Communications (FETCO), and obtained by The Canadian Press.

An interim exemption will apply to several rules the transport sector says would kneecap its operations, including requirements that employers give staff a 24-hour heads-up on shift changes and four days' notice for schedules, Employment and Social Development Canada confirmed. A mandated 30-minute break every five hours and an eight-hour rest period between shifts will also exclude some workers.

But which companies and employees will remain unshielded by the new regulations remains uncertain.

"It would be very, very specific classes of employees that, if we were to determine, could be exempt. Because ultimately these changes are about increasing productivity, increasing safety standards and work-life balance," Hajdu said in a phone interview.

Rauenbusch said the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) recognizes that airline workers occupy a round-the-clock industry and that 24-hours’ notice before a shift change may not always be feasible.

"But just because we happen to be employed in a unique industry doesn’t necessitate simply stripping us of the benefits that the government is trying to afford to workers across the country," he said.

Kelly countered that wages and longer time-off stretches can compensate for demanding scheduling protocols at airlines, trucking companies and telecoms — where repair and maintenance needs can pop up unpredictably.

"It’s not like employees in these industries are prisoners. They’re often among the most sought-after jobs around because they have other commensurate benefits," said the CFIB head.

Trucking, however, already faces a serious labour shortage, despite a low barrier to entry. Better benefits could lead to "enhanced recruitment and retention," the Employment Department said.

Employers expressed frustration with the consultation process after the government agreed to push back implementation by three months from its initial date in June.

"Given that the country is mere days away from Sept. 1, implementation of some of these labour code changes are at great risk of failure. This could have easily been avoided with a proper tripartite process many months ago, or a short delay," reads an Aug. 28 email from FETCO executive director Derrick Hynes to the Employment Department.

"What we’re waiting for is to hear back from the government around what they feel would be appropriate in terms of granting some temporary relief from some of these changes," Hynes told The Canadian Press.

The employment minister, "having attended at least one funeral this summer of people that died as a result of a vehicle collision with a transport truck," stressed health and safety — and reiterated that they go hand in hand with profit and productivity.

"At the end of the day, happy employees, safe employees, well-rested employees are more productive. It leads to safer workplaces and leads to more prosperity as a country overall," Hajdu said.

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September 01, 2019 at 03:00PM

Elon Musk goes viral by explaining the science of memes - Dexerto

Tesla CEO Elon Musk may be a billionaire and of the best-known entrepreneurs in the world, but he is also known on social media for his love of memes - and his latest scientific explanation of the phenomenon has instantly gone viral.

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Elon Musk's admiration of internet memes was confirmed when he featured on PewDiePie's famous 'Meme Review' show on YouTube back in 2018.

Since then, he has been on good form on his Twitter account, mixing in various memes along with more serious posts about his various business ventures and scientific insight.

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Elon Musk's appearance on PewDiePie's meme review has over 24 million views on YouTube.

His latest post, though, has mixed both his love of memes and science, and it's exactly what we'd expect from the SpaceX founder.

Unlike his past 'Teletubbies' memes, which were more bizarre than humorous and left his followers scratching their heads in confusion, the 'dope-a-meme' has a more intelligent twist.

Playing on the hormone 'dopamine', which is often associated with pleasure and reward, Elon proclaims that the 'dope-a-meme' is "actually true".

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Musk even mixed in his love of car power technology with another meme, mocking Car Review magazine J.D. Power for a study which found that car users find Tesla's driver-assistance technology "annoying".

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With over 28 million followers on his Twitter, Elon Musk is in the top 100 most followed accounts, just shortly behind Jenner sisters Kendall and Kylie.

His memes always go viral on the platform with over 45,000 retweets on the 'dope-a-meme' post, contributing to his account gaining almost half-a-million new followers every month.

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August 31, 2019 at 11:15PM

FedEx, UPS jockey with Amazon as tech giant expands into shipping - CNBC

A worker pushes Amazon.com Inc. packages in front of a FedEx Corp. delivery truck in New York.

Christopher Lee | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The years-long battle between Amazon and retail companies has spilled over into the shipping industry, with FedEx and UPS adjusting their strategies as the tech giant, once simply a customer, is now a major competitor.

FedEx has announced two changes to its relationship to Amazon in recent months, including ending the ground delivery contract with the e-commerce pioneer. Meanwhile, UPS is exploring new technologies, such as drones and self-driving trucks, to modernize its delivery services.

The moves come as Amazon is building up its delivery fleet, renting planes and offering $10,000 to its employees to leave the company and start their own local delivery business.

"I think they have stated that they are now a competitor to the transport industry," said Ken Hoexter, a research analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. "And FedEx has clearly viewed them now in their recent moves as an increasing competitor."

Just as some retail companies are uneasy about working with Amazon, which can be both a partner and a competitor, transportation companies are facing a similar dilemma. And with their customers facing off against Amazon in other industries, shipping companies may need to take sides.

Dan Neiweem, co-founder and principal of digital services and solutions provider Avionos, said that by ditching Amazon, FedEx may make itself more attractive to Amazon's competitors in the retail space.

He compared it to reports that WalMart is pressuring some of its partners to use Microsoft's Azure for cloud computing instead of Amazon Web Services. WalMart said "there are a small number of cases involving our most sensitive sales data that we'd prefer not sit on a competitor's platform" but its vendors can choose the cloud service they prefer.

"I think that what you'll see is that a lot of the shipments that Amazon was going into the USPS and FedEx with are now going to be transitioned from other retailers who are saying 'hey I don't anybody in my space who works with Amazon,'" Neiweem said. "And you see that parallel very, very tightly with AWS and Azure."

FedEx never relied on Amazon for a huge portion of its business. In a June statement announcing that Amazon would no longer be served by FedEx Express, the shipping company said Amazon accounted for 1.3% of its total revenues in 2018, or roughly $900 million.

From that perspective, FedEx's decision to cut ties with Amazon makes sense, Hoexter said.

"When you go to their sort centers, you can see that Walmart and Jet are a major customer of FedEx's, so certainly that relationship is as important if not more important than Amazon," Hoexter said.

"So if you have to choose one, if UPS is larger with Amazon and you're larger with Walmart, you're going to kind of work closer with that candidate."

Growing demand

Throughout its rise, Amazon has relied on UPS for a large portion of its shipping needs. UPS is still more exposed to Amazon than FedEx was. David Ross, transportation research analyst at Stifel, said he estimates that UPS gets between 7% and 9% of its total revenue from Amazon.

"If you go back 10, 15 years UPS was the chosen parcel carrier by Amazon, and when they started their prime two-day offering it was a lot of UPS," Ross said.

Amazon started using the U.S. Postal Service more after the delivery companies struggled to deliver packages on time during the 2013 holiday season, Ross said.

Online shopping has continued to grow since then. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, e-commerce has grown from roughly 4% of total retails sales in 2010 to more than 10% earlier this year. FedEx said it expects e-commerce to grow to 100 million packages per day in the U.S. by 2026.

As e-commerce has boomed, Amazon has struck out more on its own and built a sizable delivery network. The tech giant may not be delivering many third-party packages right now, but Neiweem said that's "sort of the last stand or threshold that they haven't crossed yet."

UPS and FedEx are also investing in their businesses, with both companies expanding delivery to 7 days per week.

FedEx, which said it has "a strong relationship with retailers of all sizes," has started offering retailers extended hours for package pickup, partners with stores such as Dollar General to create customer pick up areas and is experimenting with a delivery robot.

UPS, which saw demand for next day air shipping increase 30% in the second quarter, has invested in TuSimple, an autonomous shipping business, and is forming a drone subsidiary called UPS Flight Forward. The company is also expanding its air fleet and is scheduled to add 11 cargo planes this year.

Next steps

The growing demand for fast shipping has weighed on the financial results for large shipping companies. More home deliveries means shipping companies make less per stop than if they delivered a lot of packages to one spot, like a convenience store.

Hoexter said that domestic margins at UPS have been under pressure for the past several years, and that is where analysts will look to see if its new investments and increased leverage with Amazon are working.

"As we get into peak season, have they found a way to stabilize those margins despite the growth of e-commerce? That's going to be the key for the stock. When you ask what do we look for its the margin side and pricing if we start to see that improving or stabilizing. That's the first step," Hoexter said.

With FedEx now out of the picture, UPS may also be able to gain some short-term leverage on pricing, Hoexter said. That opportunity may not last for long, as Amazon continues to expand its own delivery network and expects to have 70 planes in its fleet by 2021.

For FedEx, the separation means the company can show that its e-commerce success is not tied to Amazon.

"FedEx is just showing people that they don't need Amazon to be a good business, and they feel that they can continue to grow without Amazon. I think they wanted to just distance themselves from Amazon in a way that made their own growth story a little more clear to people," Ross said.

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https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/01/fedex-ups-jockey-with-amazon-as-tech-giant-expands-into-shipping.html

2019-09-01 13:01:14Z
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