Airlines India, Indian Airlines

A chartered plane made an emergency landing at the North Platte Airport Sunday about 6:10 p.m.
The Cessna CE680 was en route from Minnesota to Denver with five passengers on board.
An indicator light came on showing that there was a fire on board. The plane was diverted to the North Platte Airport where the plane landed without incident.
The firefighters, who had received the call about 5 to 8 minutes prior to the landing, were on the site. They pulled hoses to the plane and checked for smoke or flames but found no fire.
Dave Heitman, battalion chief of the NPFD, said it was apparently a faulty indicator light and there was no fire.
Mike Hoeft, fire chief at the airport, said the plane would be grounded until the problem with the faulty light is solved.
The company sent another plane to pick up the passengers to take them on to their destination in Denver.

Island Air has sold its two charter planes, but by high season it hopes to be flying high again with a new and improved charter department.

Charters are still available through the airline, however, as it is currently running a charter brokerage service.

When contacted by the Caymanian Compass Thursday, Managing Director of Island Air Marcus Cumber said the two Piper Navajo aircraft have been for sale for the past year, to the right buyer.

It was never intentional, he said, for the two planes to be sold together.

“It has always been the hope that one plane could be sold at a time so we could maintain a proper service,” he said.

However, the right buyer happened to come along with a view to buying both planes.

Now, the company is actively seeking a new plane.

“We plan to come back with faster, more comfortable service,” said Mr. Cumber, who added that he hopes to have the upgraded charter department ready for December.

Although Island Air had to cancel a few charters because of the planes being sold, such as trips to Little Cayman and Cuba, in the last couple of weeks business had really died off with the slowing up of tourism.

But charters are still available through the company, which is doing a charter brokerage service.

“We’re still looking after high end customers by doing charters with other people’s planes,” he said.

This is being done, however, at a much lower profit margin.

Last year, Island Air finished its domestic schedule to the Sister Islands and went over to full–time charter service because of rising fuel costs, business costs and subsidised government competition.

Global ePoint, Inc., a leading manufacturer of digital surveillance and detection solutions, today announced that the UK’s leading leisure airline, First Choice Airways, has ordered its Cockpit Door Surveillance System (CDSS) from its Aviation Division, Global AirWorks. First Choice placed the order for immediate delivery to equip two Boeing 767 aircraft introduced last summer in its fleet of international charter planes. Forty CDSS kits have already been delivered for the First Choice aircraft fleet’s A320, A321, and B757 models.

First Choice Airways is one of the UK’s leading leisure airlines and is part of international leisure travel company First Choice Holidays PLC. Based in Manchester, First Choice operates specialty sun and snow charter flights with a fleet of 32 aircraft that fly six million customers from 15 airports in the UK. More than 30,000 flights every year take holiday passengers to 60 worldwide destinations, including the Maldives, Mexico and resorts across the Mediterranean. The airline was founded in 1987 as air2000 and then re-branded as First Choice Airways in March 2004, assuming the name of its parent company to reflect its status as one of the UK’s four major tour operators.

Global AirWorks President, Ricky Frick, said, “Our Cockpit Door Surveillance System continues to be the industry’s leading solution for international carriers that recognize the competitive advantages of complying with government mandates to visually monitor the area outside of the flight deck, providing in-flight security for passengers and crew.”

The Global AirWorks’ CDSS: Cockpit Door Surveillance System provides video surveillance cameras throughout the cabin and cargo area along with touch screen access monitors mounted in the cockpit to enable the pilots to maintain a complete visual of the aircraft. The CDSS not only allows the flight crew to maintain the safety of the cockpit but it also provides a comprehensive safety and security tool for incidents of air rage, fire or mechanical issues, and loss prevention.

About Global ePoint

Global ePoint designs, manufactures, sells and distributes digital video surveillance systems for the law enforcement, military, aviation and homeland security markets. On the cutting edge of digital technology, Global ePoint is developing new compression technologies and next-generation, secure network digital video systems and servers for a wide range of new markets, concentrating primarily on commercial security and homeland defense applications. The Company also manufactures customized computing systems for industrial, business and consumer markets, as well as other specialized electronic products and systems. Complete vertical integration — from design and manufacturing to sales and distribution — allows the Company to capture efficiencies and maintain cost advantages in these growing markets, particularly homeland security. For more information, please visit http://www.globalepoint.com.

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, and actual circumstances, events or results may differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements. The Company cautions readers not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. The Company does not undertake, and specifically disclaims any obligation, to update or revise such statements to reflect new circumstances or unanticipated events as they occur.

Planning a plane trip? Depending on when and where you’re flying, you may want to consider hailing a taxi instead. An air taxi, that is. Thanks to a fleet of “microjets” set to hit the market, hopping a jet could someday be as easy as hailing a cab.

Air taxis, of course, have been around for years. Geared primarily toward business travelers, most use turbo-prop planes and smaller airports to provide on-demand service for regional travel. Now, though, forward-thinking flyers are hoping “very light jets” (VLJs) may make such services feasible for the rest of us.
The idea is to provide an alternative to the current air-traffic system, where “hurry up and wait” has become the grumbled mantra of millions of frazzled travelers. The pre-dawn drive to the airport to arrive 90 minutes before departure. The curbside congestion at the terminal. The snail-paced search for a parking spot. We converge at the ticket counter, shuffle through security and jam up the jetway, a harried herd with an increasingly bad attitude.

To paraphrase the old tag line from long-defunct National Airlines, “Is this any way to run an airline industry?”

Maybe not, thanks to the first of a fleet of VLJs (also known as “microjets”) that may hit the runway over the next several months. Technically speaking, a microjet has a maximum takeoff weight of 10,000 pounds and can be operated by a single pilot. Outfitted with four to eight seats, these jets are designed to provide direct, on-demand service between destinations up to 1,300 miles apart. (Most trips are expected to be 500 miles or less.) Traveling at speeds of 400 mph and up, they’re essentially souped-up air taxis, which may explain why they’ve been likened to SUVs with wings.

Small planes, small airports
And like SUVs, they’re designed to go off the beaten path. Instead of competing for space at major hubs like Atlanta, O’Hare, and DFW, VLJs can use many of the more than 5,000 local and regional airports across the U.S. Often close to both home and destination, they’re the kind of airports where the parking is free, the security’s easy, and the rental cars are right outside the door.

The combination — small, fast planes using small, local airports — has a blue-sky appeal that’s hard to resist: head to Disney World for the day from points all over the Southeast; visit Martha’s Vineyard from much of New England without ferries or connecting flights. Suddenly, those distant weddings and family reunions that you used to drive to could be doable without the backseat soundtrack of “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”

Well, no actually, we’re not. While the idea of microjets for the masses is intriguing, the concept is not quite cleared for takeoff. Issues from pilot training to air-traffic control would need to be worked out, and a host of regulatory issues are as yet unresolved. (In mid-July, Eclipse Aviation, an industry frontrunner, was still waiting for FAA certification for its Eclipse 500.)

Then there’s the question of demand. With ticket prices expected to be higher than traditional coach fares, many members of the flying public may find the headaches of hub-based air travel a relative bargain. In the short term, most microjet seats will be filled by business travelers rather than vacationers.

NEW YORK It was stock options that made Gregory Reyes, the indicted former chief executive of Brocade Communications, very rich, and now it is abuse of options that may send him to prison.

While Reyes is not charged with criminal fraud in the issuance of his own options, the company has since concluded that during the period when Reyes was collecting the bulk of the $556 million he made from cashing in options the company was overstating its profits by more than $1 billion.

Regardless of whether Reyes is eventually convicted of the charges, he and Brocade stand out as prime examples of how executives can enrich themselves even while many public shareholders - and the company itself - lose money.

Reyes arrived at Brocade in 1998, hired as chief executive to get the company ready to go public, which it did the next year. A maker of switches involved in the storage of data sent over the Internet, it became a hot initial public offering.

It did not hurt that it appeared to be profitable, in contrast to most Internet companies. In fiscal 2000, ending in October of that year, Brocade reported earnings of $68 million.

But when the company got around to restating its earnings - taking into account the expenses it should have recorded because it did not comply with the rules on stock options - that “profit” turned into a loss of $951 million, a swing of more than $1 billion. That disclosure was made after Reyes left.

During his tenure at Brocade, which lasted six and a half years, the company ended up reporting net losses of $312 million. Reyes made profits of $556 million on his stock trades, his filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission indicate, with some of it going to family trusts, a family foundation and even his high school.

When Reyes joined Brocade, he took a salary and bonus that were not large by American standards. But options were the key to the wealth that within a few years enabled him to buy his own jet - which he charged Brocade substantial sums to use - and to become a part owner of the San Jose Sharks, a National Hockey League team.

When he joined the company, he was granted options to buy 12.8 million shares at 28 cents each. (The figures, and all other per-share numbers in this article, are adjusted for three subsequent splits.) The company lent him the $3.5 million necessary to exercise the options, which he did a few months later.

The company went public at $2.38 a share, and soon took off. It leaped 138 percent the first day and, by the time it peaked in October 2000, was at $133.72.

By the time Reyes was ousted in early 2005, after word of the options dealings spread, the shares were down to about $6, although that was up from the price of around $4 that the company had reached in early 2003. It was also at those prices that Reyes became a heavy buyer of the shares - the only prices at which he was a buyer in the public market. He ended up selling those shares for substantial profits after he left as chief executive.

Reyes received large options grants during his tenure as chief executive, some of them dated on the same days as the government now says options given to other executives were wrongly dated.

The core of the government’s case is evidence of forged documents concerning when executives joined or left the company, and there is no question he was an employee then. But the Securities and Exchange Commission, in its related civil complaint, claims that “Reyes himself received backdated options.”

None of the options he received after the company went public have been exercised, largely because of the company’s poorly performing price. But some of the options he still has are in the money and he could yet make more millions if the stock rallies from here, even though he has sold all the shares he owned.

Many of the options that may yet prove valuable were granted to him as part of an options repricing tactic used by Brocade and a number of other companies. In December 2002, it announced that executives who wished to could turn in their high-price options and be issued a lesser number of new options the following July.

Ryes turned in 11 million options with exercise prices ranging from $12.90 to $76.88, and received 1.1 million new options with a strike price of $6.54.

As it happens, some of the options that Reyes turned in had been granted solely because the share price had fallen. In April 2001, the board later reported, it concluded that the 4.8 million options it had granted him the previous November, at an exercise price of $76.88, “would no longer serve to adequately incentivize” Reyes. He was given an additional 3.97 million options with an exercise price of $20.70.

Evidently the $442 million he had already taken in from selling stock did not provide enough incentive for him.

The decision to reprice options for executives - and other executives got a better deal than Reyes did - was made less than three weeks after the company announced a restructuring that called for cutting employment by 12 percent.

That decision also came months after Reyes had purchased a stake in the Sharks hockey team, and after he had bought his private jet and begun charging the company for his use of it on corporate business.

The pricing policy on that plane seems to have changed over time. During the first two years, the company said it paid less than what it would have cost to charter planes. But during the third year, it said it believed the rate was no better or worse than commercial rates.

Brocade spent almost $1 million on such payments. It also spent the same amount to obtain what it called “marketing and advertising services,” as well as the use of facilities, from the Sharks.

Richard Marmaro, a lawyer for Reyes, did not return telephone calls early Monday. Last week he issued a statement saying that he expected his client to be acquitted and adding that “financial gain is always a motive in securities fraud cases, and here, there was none.” He said the government did not claim his client “made any money through the alleged option irregularities.”

That is true of the U.S. Justice Department indictment, but the companion civil case filed by the securities commission does make such a claim, saying he profited from selling stock while the company was concealing the options backdating.