Nearly 400 Years After Henry Hudson Set Sail From Amsterdam , OpenSkies Forges A New Connection Between Two Historically-Linked Capitals of Art, Culture and Commerce OpenSkies, the premium transatlantic airline

from British Airways, today launched new service between New York's John F. Kennedy Airport and Amsterdam's Schiphol International Airport. The new service marks the second route for OpenSkies, which began daily flights between New York-JFK and Paris-Orly in June. OpenSkies passengers will have the choice of two unique cabins for travel between New York and Amsterdam . BIZ(SM) features the market's only fully lieflat beds in a business class with prices starting from $1616* each way, based on roundtrip purchase. PREM+(SM) is a new service category offering business class comfort without the business class price, featuring wide leather seats with a 140 degree recline and 52 inches of legroom. To celebrate the launch, OpenSkies has extended a previously announced promotion and is offering an additional 1,000 PREM+ seats exclusively on sale for $499** one way between New York and Amsterdam , based on round-trip travel.

Argentina's government is in an acquisition mode; first it arbitrarily took control of all of its citizens private pension accounts and then last month, decided to seize the country's biggest airline, Aerolineas Argentinas. The government told a Buenos Aires newspaper that "talks with the current owners over a price have broken down." Private Spanish travel group Marsans agreed in July to sell faltering Aerolineas Argentinas and its Austral unit to the government. The two companies employ some 9,000 workers and operate about 80 percent of domestic flights. They also have debt worth an estimated USD$890 million. Newspaper La Nacion said the government would soon announce its decision to expropriate the airlines, citing sources in the government, trade unions and the company. "The agreement with Marsans got exhausted with time," an unnamed government official was quoted as saying. Local media have reported that Marsans values the companies at between USD$250 million and USD$450 million, while the Argentine government has said it should not have to pay anything. Governments can do that you know.

From the photographs of the event, - one of which accompanies this article - it was easy to see that the workers in the FAA Eastern Regional Federal Credit Union enjoy working together. The Credit Union held its annual staff meeting to promote teamwork amongst coworkers and maintain a healthy level of morale. Employees from all eight branches and the administrative office gathered in their headquarters in Clark, NJ to discuss future goals and celebrate past successes. Employees in attendance traveled from NJ, NY, NH and VA for this "Show Business" themed event. Upon arrival, employees were given "Playbills" outlining the day's events by the meeting coordinators, who donned VIP and Backstage Passes. They also received Admit One tickets that would be used later in the day to win fabulous prizes that had been donated by the Credit Union's preferred partners, including the Airport Press. After breakfast, the staff walked down a red carpeted hallway, lined with caricatures of themselves that depicted each person standing on a red carpet, surrounded by the flashing lights of paparazzi. Throughout the day, Credit Union workers also played games such as Credit Union Jeopardy and Autograph Bingo. These games gave employees the opportunity to win more Admit One tickets, which were also awarded based on the number of voluntary training sessions each person had attended during the year. President/CEO Tom J. O'Shea cooled things off by giving out ice cream sandwiches donated by his son's ice cream shop, Lola's in Somerset, NJ. He further expressed his appreciation of the staff by saying "Thank you all for your hard work this year. The success of our organization is a direct result of the relationships you've formed with our members." It was a sweet ending to an amazing annual staff meeting. The entire staff agreed they can't wait for next year's "encore"!