Qantas completes 'double sunrise' test flight from London to Sydney - CNBC

The first commercial flight of the Qantas Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft on December 15, 2017 in Melbourne, Australia.

James D. Morgan | Getty Images

Qantas Airways completed a 19 hour 19 minute non-stop test flight from London to Sydney on Friday as it nears a decision on whether to order planes for what would be the world's longest-ever commercial route.

"We saw a double sunrise," Qantas Chief Executive Alan Joyce said after stepping off the flight, which followed a similar one from New York to Sydney last month.

The event included speeches from Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Qantas Chairman Richard Goyder.

Qantas has named the project "Project Sunrise" after the airline's double sunrise endurance flights during World War Two, which remained airborne long enough to see two sunrises.

The plane on the London-Sydney research flight, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, carried 50 passengers and had fuel remaining for roughly another 1 hour 45 minutes of flight time when it landed.

The airline needs to get pilots to agree on contract terms and a sign-off from Australia's aviation regulator to launch the flights by 2023.

Qantas has been considering an order for either an ultra-long range version of Airbus SE's A350-1000 or the Boeing Co 777-8, although the latter plane's entry into service has been delayed and so Boeing has put together an alternative offer to deal with that.

Captain Helen Trenerry, who led the test flight, said before takeoff on Wednesday that research data including activity monitoring, sleep diaries, cognitive testing and monitoring of melatonin levels would help determine whether the crew mix of one captain, one first officer and two second officers was appropriate or if more people were needed.

She said she would be happy to fly Sydney-London or Sydney-New York but would prefer regulations that limited the trips to around one a month for pilots because "they will be very, very long flights and fatiguing over the long term".

Mark Sedgwick, the president of the Australian and International Pilots Association representing Qantas pilots, said on Friday the research flights were "a step in the right direction" but the data set was probably too limited to inform broader fatigue management plans.

Citi analysts consider the ultra-long range flights to be a game-changing opportunity for the airline as it looks to capture a premium from travelers in return for cutting out a stop-over.

In a note to clients published in July, they forecast non-stop flights from Sydney to London and New York could add A$180 million annually to the carrier's profit before tax, which was A$A1.3 billion in the financial year ended June 30.

Qantas is due to hold an investor briefing on Tuesday where it could provide guidance on future capital spending plans.

The London-Sydney flight came as the airline on Friday kicked off celebrations for its 100th year of service next year.

The 787-9 with a limited number of passengers used on the research flight had a livery celebrating Qantas' centenary.

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https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/15/qantas-completes-double-sunrise-test-flight-from-london-to-sydney.html

2019-11-15 05:05:00Z
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Downed bus trolley wires in Vancouver won’t be cleared until Friday due to job action - Global News

Vancouver commuters got a dramatic showcase Thursday of how the ongoing transit worker job action could impact public safety.

TransLink said a transit bus brought down live trolley wires near Seymour and Robson streets in downtown Vancouver around 6 p.m., bringing traffic to a brief standstill.

Vancouver Fire Rescue Services confirmed a mother and child were trapped inside their vehicle due to the wires, but were safely extracted without any injuries.

#BREAKING: No one was hurt after live trolley wires fell onto a vehicle with a mother and child inside, but TransLink says the transit dispute means the scene won't be cleaned up until tomorrow pic.twitter.com/94XdttPNSY

— Global BC (@GlobalBC) November 15, 2019

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Witnesses told Global News several other bystanders and drivers were nearby when the live wires fell.

It’s not known exactly what caused the wires to come down.

However, both Vancouver Fire and TransLink confirmed that because of the overtime ban for Coast Mountain Bus Company (CMBC) maintenance workers, the wires would not be fully repaired until Friday morning.

TransLink crews were able to bring the wires off the street and out of reach of the public before leaving.

READ MORE: Metro Vancouver transit strike to escalate Friday as talks break down

The intersection has been cleared and closed to traffic, with police rerouting drivers around the scene.

Buses along Seymour and Robson are also being rerouted. TransLink is urging riders to visit their alerts page for updated information.

The overtime ban has been in place since Nov. 1 after talks broke down between CMBC and the union representing 5,000 bus and SeaBus operators and maintenance workers.

Hopes of a deal were again dashed Thursday when a new round of talks broke down, leading the union to announce an overtime ban for bus drivers beginning Friday.

2:25Transit talks break down, union set to escalate on strike action Friday

Transit talks break down, union set to escalate on strike action Friday

© 2019 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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November 15, 2019 at 10:47AM

Blame Doug Ford: Canopy CEO cites retail woes for Q2 bomb - Article - BNN - BNNBloomberg.ca

On a day when investors punished Canopy Growth for widely missing revenue and earnings expectations in its latest quarter by sending its stock to a two-year low, its chief executive had a message for the masses: Blame Doug Ford’s Ontario government.

Canopy's chief executive officer Mark Zekulin acknowledged it has been a “challenging couple of quarters” for the cannabis sector as a still-thriving illicit market and emerging oversupply conditions have led several pot companies to report disappointing results.

But perhaps no challenge has been greater than the slow rollout of cannabis retail stores in Canada’s biggest cannabis market, which Zekulin pointed to as a key factor that significantly weighed on the company’s revenue miss.

“To be fair, licensed producers like Canopy should take responsibility for the initial supply challenges that forced Ontario to strategically make other plans and result in a subpar retail framework,” Zekulin said.

“But the fact is: there are not enough stores [in Ontario], there is enough supply and the inability to get more stores rolled out is dramatically hurting the sector.”

Zekulin said he’s relayed his concerns to the Ontario government and while people like provincial Finance Minister Rod Phillips are “saying the right things” there has been little follow-through on those discussions.

“Why it’s not just happening right away, I do not know,” he said. 

Jenessa Crognali, a spokesperson at the Ontario Ministry of the attorney general, said in an emailed statement to BNN Bloomberg that now that the federal supply shortage has begun to show signs of improvement in the past few months, the government can now “return to our original plan to allocate retail store licences based on market demand.” Crognali didn’t provide further details on when the government would move to a merit-based system in issuing cannabis store licences.

Canopy executives on a conference call with analysts remained optimistic that will change. Canopy’s chief financial officer Mike Lee said the company assumes Ontario will begin issuing new licences, allowing for 40 stores a month to open beginning in January, while consumer demand should reach “equilibrium” sometime in the summer or fall.

“If Ontario doesn’t open stores for another year, we have a problem,” Zekulin said.

However, BMO Capital Markets analyst Tamy Chen said in a report on Thursday that even if Ontario opens more stores, it’s hard to see how the province could open enough shops over the next year to fully absorb the industry's increasing production output, which includes the outdoor harvest soon to come to the market.  

Canopy’s second-quarter loss came to $374.6 million in the quarter, attributed to a restructuring of its portfolio of cannabis softgels and oils after recording “returns, return provisions, and pricing allowances” during the period. The company’s net revenue in the quarter totalled $76.6 million, which took into account a restructuring charge of $32.7 million related to its softgel and oil products and was down from $90.5 million from the prior quarter.  It also wrote down $15.9 million in inventory it now deems as “excess or obsolete”.

The company reported an adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization) loss of $155.7 million. Canadian cannabis sales fell seven per cent from the prior quarter to $76.6 million after the company recorded a drop in business-to-business sales in the period. Canopy sold a total of 10,913 kilograms of cannabis products in its second quarter, up three per cent from its prior quarter.

“It’s fair to say it’s been a challenging couple of quarters in the cannabis sector," Zekulin said during an earlier conference call with analysts. "The market opportunity [in Canada] is not living to expectations."                                                               

Canopy said it now has $2.74 billion of cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities as of its second-quarter, a sizable war chest that remains ahead of its industry peers, but down 39 per cent from the same period a year earlier. The company said it used $404.7 million in cash in the quarter, primarily for its operations as well as the construction of its manufacturing and beverage production facilities.

Zekulin said Canopy doesn’t plan to spend much money on building out infrastructure in Canada or Europe and while its global M&A programs are “substantially completed”, it may spend to invest in the U.S. hemp sector where the company aims to become a major player in the CBD space.

Canopy’s rough quarter may see investors remain on the sidelines in the cannabis sector until companies report several consecutive periods of profitable results, said Gordon Reid, president and CEO of Toronto-based Goodreid Investment Counsel Corp.

“This is eight out of the last 11 quarters that Canopy has missed expectations, and they’re not alone,” Reid told BNN Bloomberg Thursday. “From an investing standpoint, this is a minefield. We’ve been asked, ever since legalization happened [in Oct. 2018], if we want to take a position and we’ve straight out said: ‘No, thank you.’ We’ll wait and see. I’d much rather be paid a much higher price for much greater certainty than get into what is a black hole at this point.”

Last month, Canopy began to unveil some of the next-generation cannabis products the company's management hopes will be part of its drive to profitability. The cannabis producer showcased its new chocolate products, several new drink offerings, including a "distilled" cannabis-infused beverage, while its new vape devices with "proprietary" technology will be launched later this month.

This is also likely the last quarter Zekulin be a part of Canopy’s management team. Zekulin, who assumed the top position after his co-CEO Bruce Linton was fired by Canopy's board in July, said a new chief executive will take over the company by the end of the year. ​

Zekulin said Canopy is in the final stages of its search for a new CEO and expects to make an announcement in the coming weeks.

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November 15, 2019 at 04:55AM

‘Unmistakable bias’: Amazon protests $10B Pentagon contract won by Microsoft - Global News

By Staff The Associated Press

Posted November 14, 2019 10:17 pm

Updated November 14, 2019 10:27 pm

Amazon is protesting the Pentagon’s decision to award a $10 billion cloud-computing contract to Microsoft, citing “unmistakable bias” in the process.

Amazon’s competitive bid for the “war cloud” project drew criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump and its business rivals. The project, formally called the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI, pitted leading tech titans Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle and IBM against one another.

In a statement, Amazon said that “numerous aspects” of the bidding process involved “clear deficiencies, errors, and unmistakable bias.” It did not elaborate.

READ MORE: Microsoft beats Amazon for $10B cloud contract with Pentagon

Amazon added that “it’s important that these matters be examined and rectified.”

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Amazon was widely considered the front-runner in the contract competition. Tech giants Oracle and IBM pushed back with their own bids and also formally protested the bidding process last year. Oracle later challenged the process in federal court, but lost.

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Trump waded into the fray in July, saying that his administration would “take a very long look” at the process and that he had heard complaints. Trump has frequently expressed his ire for Amazon and founder Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post. At the time, he said other companies told him that the contract “wasn’t competitively bid.”

1:46Trump delivers attack on Amazon and CEO Bezos

Trump delivers attack on Amazon and CEO Bezos

Amazon said it filed its protest in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which deals with financial claims against the federal government.

© 2019 The Canadian Press

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November 15, 2019 at 10:17AM

Contract talks collapse between union, Coast Mountain Bus Company - CBC.ca

Talks between the union representing 5,000 Coast Mountain Bus Company workers and their employer have broken down and workers plan to escalate job action in the form of a driver overtime ban starting on Friday and continuing on Monday, Wednesday and Friday of next week.

Current job action involves drivers not wearing uniforms and an overtime ban for maintenance and SeaBus workers. The latter has resulted in delayed service on dozens of bus routes and the cancellation of 120 SeaBus sailings. 

Chief Unifor negotiator Gavin McGarrigle said the two sides had made some progress on working condition but none on wages and benefits.

"They are still rejecting any comparison with the Toronto transit system, even though Coast Mountain Bus Company executives and TransLink executives are more than happy to look at the Toronto  transit system for comparison," he said.

Unifor members began limited job action on Nov. 1. Both sides have said the additional job action by bus drivers will have between a 10 to 15 per cent impact on the system.

'We need a deal that's realistic'

CMBC president Michael McDaniel said he's disappointed an agreement couldn't be reached, describing the transit company's latest proposal as generous.

"This enhanced proposal directly focuses on working conditions. This is the exact issue the union has asked us to improve," McDaniel said in a news release.

"Wage demands over and above the increases we have already offered will come at the expense of services for customers. We need a deal that's realistic."

According to CMBC, the most recent offer includes a guarantee of at least 40 minutes of recovery time for each shift, and clarifies that drivers are allowed to use the washroom whenever necessary.

The offer also includes pay increases of $6,100 annually on the top wage for drivers over the next four years, and $10,000 for skilled trades. That would bring the top annual wages to $69,900 for drivers and $88,000 for skilled trades.

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November 15, 2019 at 02:50AM

U.S. Fed's Jerome Powell urges Congress to tackle growing budget deficit - CBC.ca

U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell on Thursday urged Congress to tackle the growing budget deficit but also underscored the current health of the nation's economy.

Powell's testimony before the House budget committee came a day after he told the joint economic committee of Congress that the Fed was likely to keep rates unchanged in the coming months, unless there is a "material" shift in the economic outlook.

Powell is one of the few leading public figures urging Congress to reduce the federal government's annual deficit, which is nearing $1 trillion US.

A large deficit will make it harder for Congress to cut taxes or boost spending when the next recession hits, Powell noted. That is a concern because, with the Fed's benchmark interest rate already low, the Fed also has a limited ability to respond to downturns.

"It's very important that Congress be able to support the economy because we won't have as much room to cut," he said.

Powell's remarks came two weeks after the Fed cut its short-term rate to a range of just 1.5 per cent to 1.75 per cent, its third cut this year. The Fed took those steps to offset slowing global growth and the drag created by the U.S.-China trade war. Both have caused businesses to cut back on investment spending and have driven down factory output.

Historically, the Fed has cut its rate by about five percentage points in recessions.

Still, Powell also emphasized his view that the economy is likely to keep growing, with little sign of a bubble in stocks or other assets that could later burst.

"There is no reason to believe that the probability of a recession is elevated at this time," Powell said. "We don't see the warning signs that appeared in other cycles, yet." The downturn in manufacturing is being offset by strong consumer spending, he added.

Trump's attacks on Fed 'unacceptable'

Some Democratic members of the committee defended Powell from attacks levelled by President Donald Trump, who criticized the Fed Tuesday in a speech for not cutting rates further. Trump has also called Fed officials "boneheads" and questioned whether Powell or China's President Xi Jinping is a bigger enemy.

"The president's repeated attacks on this institution are unacceptable and dangerous," Rep. John Yarmuth, Democrat from Kentucky and chairman of the House budget committee, said.

House budget committee chairman Rep. John Yarmuth, centre, listens as Powell testifies to the House budget committee on Thursday. (Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press)

Rep. Dale Kildee, a Democrat from Michigan, said Trump's attacks reflected a "deranged view." Previous presidents have publicly acknowledged the Fed's independence, but many have pressured Fed officials privately.

Under questioning about the budget deficit, Powell acknowledged that the federal government still had some room to boost the economy through tax cuts or more spending, should a downturn arrive.

He also said that U.S. national debt was unlikely to create a financial crisis for decades. The United States has advantages, he said, such as a productive, growing economy and the fact that its dollar is the world's reserve currency.

"The day of reckoning could be quite far off," he added. But as long as the debt is growing faster than the U.S. economy, he said, it means that future generations may have to spend more on interest than on productive investments such as infrastructure or education.

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November 15, 2019 at 01:32AM

CPPIB posts 2.3-per-cent return in second quarter - The Globe and Mail

CEO Mark Machin walks through the CPPIB office in Toronto in this file photo.

Mark Blinch/The Globe and Mail

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board posted a 2.3-per-cent return in the quarter ended Sept. 30, helping it maintain double-digit long-term returns and add nearly $10-billion to its total assets.

CPPIB, the investment manager for the Canada Pension Plan, said its five-year and 10-year returns through Sept. 30 averaged 10.3 and 10.2 per cent over the period, and it closed the quarter with assets of $409.5-billion.

CPPIB didn’t break out returns by asset class, but said the group that actively manages its equity investments, as well as its private-equities division, were “strong contributors.” The Active Equities department picks specific stocks with an aim to outperforming the market, while private equity is the ownership of private companies, often aided by substantial borrowing.

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It received “modest gains” from its passive portfolio, a style of investing designed to match the overall market. CPPIB also said it had positive performance in other asset classes, including its bonds, aided by declining interest rates.

A little less than one-third of the fund’s assets are in stocks traded on the public markets. A quarter of the portfolio is private equity.

All return percentages are net of costs, CPPIB said. Because the CPP must serve plan members for decades to come, CPPIB says long-term results “are a more appropriate measure of CPPIB’s investment performance compared to quarterly or annual cycles.”

Canada Pension Plan, founded in 1966, is the primary retirement-security program for working Canadians. The government created CPPIB in 1999 to professionally manage the Plan’s money. The past two decades have seen a shift first from bonds to stocks, then to assets like real estate, infrastructure and private equity. The government projects the CPP Fund will grow to $545-billion in assets by 2025 and $1.5-trillion in assets by 2040.

Major deals in the quarter included buying publicly traded Pattern Energy Group Inc. for US$2.3-billion in cash, valuing the company at US$6.1-billion, including debt. It also struck a deal to merge data-information provider Refinitiv into the London Stock Exchange, valuing Refinitiv at US$27-billion.

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November 14, 2019 at 08:48PM