Thursday, April 29, 2010
10 things that Airlines don't tell you
1. “Welcome to our crowded plane.”
Just because you show up at the airport with a ticket reservation doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll end up on your intended flight. Most airlines overbook flights to compensate for last-minute cancellations, but they don’t always get the numbers right. And with so few seats open on later flights, fewer folks are volunteering to get bumped. As a result, the number of involuntarily bumped passengers is up, having grown 45 percent between 2005 and 2009, according to the Department of Transportation.“Instead of fixing the problem,” says Tony Polito, an associate professor in the college of business at East Carolina University who has published academic articles about airline industry issues, “they are institutionalizing it.”
What’s worse, travelers who get involuntarily bumped aren’t necessarily entitled to “denied-boarding compensation.” If the airline arranges substitute transportation that gets you to your destination within one hour of your original scheduled arrival time, there is no compensation. If you arrive an hour or more later, the airline is required to pay you, up to a maximum of $800, depending on the price of the ticket and length of delay, according to the DOT’s rules.
David Castelveter, spokesperson for the Air Transport Association, says filling an airplane and keeping passengers happy is a balancing act. The carriers are in business to maximize their revenues, he says — not to bump passengers and pay boarding compensation, and not to depart with empty seats. To achieve those goals, the airlines analyze historical booking information and other data to figure out how many seats to sell or oversell. “By overbooking flights, carriers make available seats — for passengers who want and need those seats — left open because someone no-shows, for whatever reason,” he says.
2. “Your hard-won air miles are probably worth less.”
Air miles are easy to accrue. You can earn them using your credit card, getting a mortgage, “for anything short of breathing,” says Tim Winship, editor at large of SmarterTravel.com. American Airlines, for example, has thousands of participating companies in its frequent-flier program, making it an important revenue center. And United Airlines’ Mileage Plus plan brought in $700 million for the company in 2008, the most recent year for which data is available, up from $600 million in 2006.
But as miles flood the market, they’re getting harder to use. Some airlines have reduced the shelf life of air miles, while others have increased the amount required for an upgrade. Winship says customers can keep their account current by using a credit card affiliated with the program, which will build miles as they make purchases. You can also redeem a small amount of miles, to keep your account active, on things like magazine subscriptions.
3. “We’ll give you a good deal — if we can get something out of it.”
Airlines prefer that you book directly with them, so they often feature promotional codes and special deals exclusively on their own web sites. The goal is to get more consumers to book airfare there as opposed to on the discount web sites that list pricing from most airlines. Why? Airlines pay these online booking sites a commission for the tickets they sell — something they prefer not to do.
While consumers can find helpful deals on the airlines’ sites, they should compare pricing there with what the other sites are offering. Also, travelers might find the lowest fare by booking two separate airlines for each leg of their trip, but they’re unlikely to be informed of that when they book a ticket on an airline’s site.
Some airlines, like Southwest, only permit travelers to buy tickets online from their own web sites. However, Southwest’s computer application Ding will scan for the best fares and update you on deals. What does the carrier get in return? Loyalty and repeat fliers. In 2007, American launched a similar application called DealFinder, which offers big discounts on flights.
4. “We love adding fees.”
A big chunk of the price you pay for a ticket covers additional fees that are often added at the end of the booking process, when buyers are less likely to change their mind. That way, the listed ticket price looks lower than it actually is.
The most common fee these days is for checked bags. For example, United now charges $23 to $25 for the first bag a traveler checks in at the airport, and $32 to $35 for the second. Other examples of fees: Passengers who reserve a seat on Spirit Airlines pay $15 extra for an exit row seat. And Allegiant, a low-cost airline that provides service from cities like Missoula, Mont., charges $19 just to book a ticket online. Some airlines have fuel surcharges, which vary in price depending on many factors, including the length of the trip.
Even frequent-flier programs, which are supposed to let you book “free flights,” have added fees for things like booking too close to your travel date. “I keep seeing more and more of these hidden fees,” says George Hobica, creator of Airfarewatchdog.com. “I get complaints from people all the time.” A spokeswoman for American Airlines says the company does charge fees for flights booked with less than 21 days advance notice for people using frequent flyer miles. Passengers booking a flight just seven to 20 days before takeoff can incur a fee of $50 fee or more, and those who book between two hours and six days before departure can incur a $fee of 100, minimum. In addition, she says, there’s a $10 security service fee that’s collected on roundtrip airfare for passengers boarding in the U.S., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
5. “Customer service isn’t always our top priority . . .”
After being stuck in a plane on the tarmac for nine hours in 2006, Kate Hanni decided to fight back against poor customer service. She formed the group Flyerrights.org, which in December was successful in getting the DOT to issue a rule on “enhancing airline passenger protections” that includes requiring the airlines to allow passengers to disembark after three hours on the tarmac and requiring airlines to provide adequate food and water to passengers within two hours of them being stuck in a plane. A DOT spokeswoman says the rule will take effect on April 29, after the department reviews requests from certain carriers that have asked for temporary exemptions.
According to Claes Fornell, a professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, customer satisfaction is up about 3% in 2009 compared with 2008, in part because fewer people are traveling. However, he is unimpressed with the carriers’ attitudes toward customers. “They all offer about the same lousy service,” he says.
Castelveter of the Air Transport Association, which represents the airlines, says travelers are upset by delays that are often out of the airlines’ control. “This is a customer-service-driven business, and when we fail our customers, we lose them,” Castelveter says. “Good customer service is our goal.”
6. “. . . but it might be if you have a lot of miles.”
They may be making a lot of customers miserable these days, but if airlines could be said to cater to anyone’s needs, it would be those of the people in the top tier of their frequent-flier programs — heavy travelers, many of whom fly for business and therefore buy the most expensive tickets. “These people get white-glove service,” says Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst with Forrester Research. “Airlines really want to cultivate that relationship.”
These favored fliers typically get the first crack at upgrades. In many cases, the reservation center answers their call on the first ring. They often get special bonus-mile offers and free upgrades. And while some airlines are increasing fees associated with frequent-flier programs, members still have perks like first-class check-in (for shorter lines through security) and early boarding.
7. “Our planes can make travel uncomfortable – and costlier.”
Older aircraft are maintained to high safety standards. But they can cause more delays due to last-minute mechanical problems, and they guzzle fuel, a cost that filters down to customers, says CreditSights analyst Roger King. What’s more, with older planes, the airlines feel little pressure to upgrade, says Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst with the Teal Group. Seating room is minimal, in-flight entertainment is mediocre or nonexistent and meal service is unlikely, he says.
The industry has a different point of view. “Aircraft of 30 years ago might have guzzled more fuel, but the ones that began operating in the last decade are quite fuel efficient,” says Castelveter, pointing out that some airlines have adjusted aerodynamics on older aircraft so they burn less fuel. The notion that older planes are smaller inside than their newer counterparts is also wrong, he says—and meal service has nothing to do with the age of a plane. “Meals, in some cases, have been eliminated, even in the newer model aircraft,” he says.
8. “Even we don’t understand our pricing.”
Most domestic flights operate with two cabins – coach and first or business class while international flights are divided into first class, business and economy. But when it comes to pricing, there are often around a dozen or more different price points for seats on each plane. “Ticket pricing is a mix of science, game theory and art — a three dimensional matrix,” says Harteveldt of Forrester Research. The biggest factor, beyond basic costs like fuel and labor, is the competition. Airlines track one another’s fares, then try to determine how many business travelers, who generally pay a premium for flexible tickets, are likely to book a flight. On routes with lots of business travelers, seat prices can stay high because airlines know they’ll book seats at the last minute. As each seat sells, the prices of others fluctuate: Domestic fares can change up to three times a day during the week and once on weekends, says Hobica.
But prices don’t only go up. A number of factors can cause prices to fluctuate months or even hours before a flight takes off. One example is if demand from business travelers is lagging, prices may fall as the flight time gets closer. If that happens and the fare drops by the time your flight leaves, you can get a voucher from a number of airlines for the difference between what you paid for the airfare and the lowest price it dropped to. Customers can get this refund if they bought published airfare either directly from the airline or from most price-comparison sites. Some airlines will assess a fee with this refund, but customers should still ask for the full amount. JetBlue, for example, doesn’t deduct a fee; instead it puts the difference into a credit, which a customer can use toward airfare within 12 months, says a spokesperson.
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10 Things Your Airline Won't Tell You
Updated and adapted from the book "1,001 Things They Won't Tell You: An Insider's Guide to Spending, Saving, and Living Wisely," by Jonathan Dahl and the editors of SmartMoney
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1. “Welcome to our crowded plane.”
Just because you show up at the airport with a ticket reservation doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll end up on your intended flight. Most airlines overbook flights to compensate for last-minute cancellations, but they don’t always get the numbers right. And with so few seats open on later flights, fewer folks are volunteering to get bumped. As a result, the number of involuntarily bumped passengers is up, having grown 45 percent between 2005 and 2009, according to the Department of Transportation.“Instead of fixing the problem,” says Tony Polito, an associate professor in the college of business at East Carolina University who has published academic articles about airline industry issues, “they are institutionalizing it.”
What’s worse, travelers who get involuntarily bumped aren’t necessarily entitled to “denied-boarding compensation.” If the airline arranges substitute transportation that gets you to your destination within one hour of your original scheduled arrival time, there is no compensation. If you arrive an hour or more later, the airline is required to pay you, up to a maximum of $800, depending on the price of the ticket and length of delay, according to the DOT’s rules.
David Castelveter, spokesperson for the Air Transport Association, says filling an airplane and keeping passengers happy is a balancing act. The carriers are in business to maximize their revenues, he says — not to bump passengers and pay boarding compensation, and not to depart with empty seats. To achieve those goals, the airlines analyze historical booking information and other data to figure out how many seats to sell or oversell. “By overbooking flights, carriers make available seats — for passengers who want and need those seats — left open because someone no-shows, for whatever reason,” he says.
2. “Your hard-won air miles are probably worth less.”
Air miles are easy to accrue. You can earn them using your credit card, getting a mortgage, “for anything short of breathing,” says Tim Winship, editor at large of SmarterTravel.com. American Airlines, for example, has thousands of participating companies in its frequent-flier program, making it an important revenue center. And United Airlines’ Mileage Plus plan brought in $700 million for the company in 2008, the most recent year for which data is available, up from $600 million in 2006.
But as miles flood the market, they’re getting harder to use. Some airlines have reduced the shelf life of air miles, while others have increased the amount required for an upgrade. Winship says customers can keep their account current by using a credit card affiliated with the program, which will build miles as they make purchases. You can also redeem a small amount of miles, to keep your account active, on things like magazine subscriptions.
3. “We’ll give you a good deal — if we can get something out of it.”
Airlines prefer that you book directly with them, so they often feature promotional codes and special deals exclusively on their own web sites. The goal is to get more consumers to book airfare there as opposed to on the discount web sites that list pricing from most airlines. Why? Airlines pay these online booking sites a commission for the tickets they sell — something they prefer not to do.
While consumers can find helpful deals on the airlines’ sites, they should compare pricing there with what the other sites are offering. Also, travelers might find the lowest fare by booking two separate airlines for each leg of their trip, but they’re unlikely to be informed of that when they book a ticket on an airline’s site.
Some airlines, like Southwest, only permit travelers to buy tickets online from their own web sites. However, Southwest’s computer application Ding will scan for the best fares and update you on deals. What does the carrier get in return? Loyalty and repeat fliers. In 2007, American launched a similar application called DealFinder, which offers big discounts on flights.
4. “We love adding fees.”
A big chunk of the price you pay for a ticket covers additional fees that are often added at the end of the booking process, when buyers are less likely to change their mind. That way, the listed ticket price looks lower than it actually is.
The most common fee these days is for checked bags. For example, United now charges $23 to $25 for the first bag a traveler checks in at the airport, and $32 to $35 for the second. Other examples of fees: Passengers who reserve a seat on Spirit Airlines pay $15 extra for an exit row seat. And Allegiant, a low-cost airline that provides service from cities like Missoula, Mont., charges $19 just to book a ticket online. Some airlines have fuel surcharges, which vary in price depending on many factors, including the length of the trip.
Even frequent-flier programs, which are supposed to let you book “free flights,” have added fees for things like booking too close to your travel date. “I keep seeing more and more of these hidden fees,” says George Hobica, creator of Airfarewatchdog.com. “I get complaints from people all the time.” A spokeswoman for American Airlines says the company does charge fees for flights booked with less than 21 days advance notice for people using frequent flyer miles. Passengers booking a flight just seven to 20 days before takeoff can incur a fee of $50 fee or more, and those who book between two hours and six days before departure can incur a $fee of 100, minimum. In addition, she says, there’s a $10 security service fee that’s collected on roundtrip airfare for passengers boarding in the U.S., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
5. “Customer service isn’t always our top priority . . .”
After being stuck in a plane on the tarmac for nine hours in 2006, Kate Hanni decided to fight back against poor customer service. She formed the group Flyerrights.org, which in December was successful in getting the DOT to issue a rule on “enhancing airline passenger protections” that includes requiring the airlines to allow passengers to disembark after three hours on the tarmac and requiring airlines to provide adequate food and water to passengers within two hours of them being stuck in a plane. A DOT spokeswoman says the rule will take effect on April 29, after the department reviews requests from certain carriers that have asked for temporary exemptions.
According to Claes Fornell, a professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, customer satisfaction is up about 3% in 2009 compared with 2008, in part because fewer people are traveling. However, he is unimpressed with the carriers’ attitudes toward customers. “They all offer about the same lousy service,” he says.
Castelveter of the Air Transport Association, which represents the airlines, says travelers are upset by delays that are often out of the airlines’ control. “This is a customer-service-driven business, and when we fail our customers, we lose them,” Castelveter says. “Good customer service is our goal.”
6. “. . . but it might be if you have a lot of miles.”
They may be making a lot of customers miserable these days, but if airlines could be said to cater to anyone’s needs, it would be those of the people in the top tier of their frequent-flier programs — heavy travelers, many of whom fly for business and therefore buy the most expensive tickets. “These people get white-glove service,” says Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst with Forrester Research. “Airlines really want to cultivate that relationship.”
These favored fliers typically get the first crack at upgrades. In many cases, the reservation center answers their call on the first ring. They often get special bonus-mile offers and free upgrades. And while some airlines are increasing fees associated with frequent-flier programs, members still have perks like first-class check-in (for shorter lines through security) and early boarding.
7. “Our planes can make travel uncomfortable – and costlier.”
Older aircraft are maintained to high safety standards. But they can cause more delays due to last-minute mechanical problems, and they guzzle fuel, a cost that filters down to customers, says CreditSights analyst Roger King. What’s more, with older planes, the airlines feel little pressure to upgrade, says Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst with the Teal Group. Seating room is minimal, in-flight entertainment is mediocre or nonexistent and meal service is unlikely, he says.
The industry has a different point of view. “Aircraft of 30 years ago might have guzzled more fuel, but the ones that began operating in the last decade are quite fuel efficient,” says Castelveter, pointing out that some airlines have adjusted aerodynamics on older aircraft so they burn less fuel. The notion that older planes are smaller inside than their newer counterparts is also wrong, he says—and meal service has nothing to do with the age of a plane. “Meals, in some cases, have been eliminated, even in the newer model aircraft,” he says.
8. “Even we don’t understand our pricing.”
Most domestic flights operate with two cabins – coach and first or business class while international flights are divided into first class, business and economy. But when it comes to pricing, there are often around a dozen or more different price points for seats on each plane. “Ticket pricing is a mix of science, game theory and art — a three dimensional matrix,” says Harteveldt of Forrester Research. The biggest factor, beyond basic costs like fuel and labor, is the competition. Airlines track one another’s fares, then try to determine how many business travelers, who generally pay a premium for flexible tickets, are likely to book a flight. On routes with lots of business travelers, seat prices can stay high because airlines know they’ll book seats at the last minute. As each seat sells, the prices of others fluctuate: Domestic fares can change up to three times a day during the week and once on weekends, says Hobica.
But prices don’t only go up. A number of factors can cause prices to fluctuate months or even hours before a flight takes off. One example is if demand from business travelers is lagging, prices may fall as the flight time gets closer. If that happens and the fare drops by the time your flight leaves, you can get a voucher from a number of airlines for the difference between what you paid for the airfare and the lowest price it dropped to. Customers can get this refund if they bought published airfare either directly from the airline or from most price-comparison sites. Some airlines will assess a fee with this refund, but customers should still ask for the full amount. JetBlue, for example, doesn’t deduct a fee; instead it puts the difference into a credit, which a customer can use toward airfare within 12 months, says a spokesperson.
9. “We’re at the mercy of old technology.”
Air traffic decreased in 2009, when the number of flights fell by 6.6 percent compared with 2008, and the number of passengers traveling fell 5.3 percent, according to the DOT. But even with less-crowded skies, air-traffic control’s radar-based system, which safely tracks planes, remains inefficient. Planes are routed across the country in a zig zag fashion on a series of highways in the sky, spacing them at least five miles apart for safety. And that’s the problem: Because radar pinpoints planes about every 12 seconds, their precise location is not known, says Castelveter.
The airlines would like to see this system replaced by one based on digital-satellite technology, he says. That would allow planes to fly much closer, which would be safer, help reduce congestion and allow more flights. Some airlines have been working toward this goal for a while. In the mid-1990s, Alaska Airlines began using Required Navigation Performance (RNP), a global positioning system that helps airplanes fly more-direct routes with more accuracy and save fuel. And according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, Southwest Airlines is planning to change the cockpit software in two-thirds of its fleet to RNP.
10. “You’ll wait because the system’s broken.”
Airline delays aren’t as widespread as they were a few years ago, but they’re still a problem. In 2009, 18.9 percent of flights arrived late and 16.8 percent of flights departed late, down from 24% and 21% respectively in 2007, according to the DOT.
But if bad weather rolls in, delays increase and spread across the country. When JFK and Newark airports experienced serious delays in 2007, the Federal Aviation Administration stepped in the following year and capped scheduled flights going in and out of JFK at 83 for peak hours, down from 100 or more. The agency also limited scheduled flights at Newark to 81 flights per hour. Since then, delays have decreased at the three major New York- area airports assisted by scheduling limits, improvements in air traffic control, and reductions in flying, says an FAA spokesperson.
Even the airlines say these were necessary steps. But the carriers would like more action from the government, including pushing through upgrades of the air-traffic-control system, which would increase capacity at airports. Castelveter of the ATA says there is plenty of blame to spread for delay, from the need for a modernized air-traffic control system to the volume of corporate jets. “It’s an incredibly complex problem,” says Shannon Anderson, associate professor of management at Rice University, one involving aging technology, competing airlines and private and commercial carriers. “Just capping the number of flights is not going to solve it.”
What Chelisa Wants from Dad - Chelsea's Pre-Wedding request to Dad
Chelsea Clinton admonishes Bill to lose 15 lbs. for her summer wedding
It's no secret that Bill Clinton is waging an ongoing battle with his weight. The former president's affection for greasy fast food has been the punchline of countless jokes since his arrival on the national scene.
"Saturday Night Live" writers famously portrayed him as someone who frequents McDonald's to pick burgers and fries off the plates of strangers. If such indignities weren't enough, Clinton's own daughter, Chelsea, is now taking him to task over his size, demanding that he lose at least 15 pounds in advance of her summer wedding. Clinton recounted his daughter's admonition during remarks at a fiscal summit in Washington, D.C
Clinton — whose diet was cited among the factors contributing to his need for cardio-bypass surgery in 2004 — explained that Chelsea was pressing him to slim down for the sake of the nuptial ceremony. "She doesn't think I'm in shape to handle it," Clinton said. "You know, she told me the other day, she said, 'Dad, the only thing you gotta do is walk me down the aisle, and you need to look good.'
" Clinton added that when he asked her to specify how much trimming down she felt he needed to do, she said, "Oh, about 15 pounds," an effort he said he's "halfway home" toward accomplishing.
To Clinton's credit, the doctor who performed a recent heart procedure on him said that he's done an excellent job making the adjustment to a healthier lifestyle. "He really toed the line in terms of diet and exercise," said Dr. Allan Schwartz, the chief cardiologist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. "He really followed the program.
" Once he sheds the excess bulge, Clinton can presumably focus on what he described as the ceremony's main challenge when he discussed Chelsea's wedding with "Today Show" contributor Jenna Bush Hager: Keeping from tearing up as the vows are exchanged.
5 people on Time 100 list you've never heard of
Time's list of the 100 most influential people in the world, with a cover that features Lady Gaga, Bill Clinton, Sarah Palin, and Conan O'Brien, among others (see the image below).
But the list is full of non-marquee names, too. Here's our rundown of five entries on the list you've probably never heard of.
Jenny Beth Martin : Move over, Sarah Palin. Martin is a co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots group, which claims 15 million members. Martin has also worked as a paid Republican consultant. She told USA Today that she became a protester after her husband's business went under and the two were cleaning houses. She helped organize the movement's march on Washington in September. Tea partiers are "not your hippie protesters," she told USA Today. "It's people who are working hard for their families and they don't want their money taken away from them to be given to people who aren't working hard."
Dr. Douglas Schwartzentruber and Dr. Larry Kwak : Time wrote last year about Schwartzentruber and Kwak's work to develop a vaccine against cancer that could eliminate the need for radiation and chemotherapy. The two shocked the medical world in June when they announced positive results in separate studies that inoculated patients who had melanoma or lymphoma.
Reem Al Numery: When she was 12, Reem was forced to marry her 30-year-old cousin, and her own father threatened to kill her when she fought back and ran away. Yemeni officials refused her petition for a divorce, and she was unable to attend a ceremony in her honor in the U.S. because she was forbidden to leave her home country. "While my hair was styled for the ceremony, I thought of ways to set fire to my wedding dress," Reem reportedly told U.S. Embassy officials. "When I protested, my dad gagged me and tied me up. After the wedding, I tried to kill myself twice." She was finally granted a divorce from the Yemeni legal system and is an advocate for ending child marriage. Feminist leader Gloria Steinem's tribute in Time describes Reem as "one of the brave girl children who are risking everything to protest being sold into marriage by fathers and becoming the endangered and uneducated chattel of husbands."
Mark Carney: As Canada's central banker, Mark Carney had the good fortune of presiding over a country that didn't need a single bailout while the U.S. financial sector was in grave peril 2008 and 2009. At 45, Carney is one of Canada's youngest central bankers ever, and the only one with a background in investment banking. He spent more than 10 years at Goldman Sachs, and doesn't get distracted by "populist zeal" while working toward banking reforms with the G-8, Time's tribute says.
Neill Blomkamp: The 30-year-old South African filmmaker blew critics away with his sci-fi flick "District 9," which he wrote and directed. The low-budget movie — Blomkamp's first — was in a quasi-documentary style and won wide praise for its groundbreaking visual effects. "District 9" also employed familiar themes in sci-fi storytelling to develop a sharp allegory about the lingering fallout from apartheid-era South Africa. It earned a best-picture nomination at the 2009 Oscars, and Blomkamp might do a sequel, Empire magazine has reported.
Top 10 Highest Paid Hollywood Actresses
Kirsten Dunst: $8 mil-$10 mil. What she should be asking: $1 mil. Eventually, the Spider-Man franchise will end. Marie Antoinette dying in theaters didn't help her price. She was an idiot not to star in Bring It On sequels for big bucks. She's not sexy enough and she won't age well with audiences. This is a career about to end.
Charlize Theron: $10 mil. What she should be asking: $10 mil. A smart actress, surrounded by smart people, doing smart roles. Just don't fuck it up with too many vanity projects like North Country.
Cameron Diaz: $15 mil. What she should be asking: $7 mil. Put her in a bikini, and she's worth it. Put her in a chick flick (In Her Shoes, The Holiday), and she's not. Everyone finds her sexy, but women don't like her. (It's jealousy. And not just because of Justin.) Plus, she simply doesn't have much range as an actress from the neck up.
Drew Barrymore: $15 mil. What she should be asking: $3 mil. Drew has never been able to open a movie, and she never will. That doesn't mean she isn't sweet onscreen, but lately her roles have been too saccharine. If only she'd bring back that Poison Ivy edginess she once had. Women like her but they don't want to be her (or even briefly married to Tom Green), whereas men don't think she's hot anymore. Drew's price should go up when she grows up.
Jennifer Aniston: $8 mil. What she should be asking: $1 mil. She's not a movie star. She's a TV star. Big difference. Most of all, she's not an interesting actress. She can't open a movie, and her choice of material is abysmal. Sure, The Break-Up did okay business, but that was because of Vince and in spite of her. Soon she'll be lucky to score the next Lifetime movie.
Angelina Jolie: $10 mil. What she should be asking: $25 mil. There's no one hotter and cooler right now than Angelina onscreen and off (just ask the stalkarazzi), but that could change if she starts auditioning for sainthood by making too many message movies. Let's hope she's too bad-ass for that.
Reese Witherspoon: $15 mil. What she should be earning: $25 mil. Reese can do no wrong. Women love her, men love her, the camera loves her. And she's smart: when she was looking for a new agency, she lamented not owning her Legally Blonde character because it'll be Broadway bound. Which doesn't mean all her films are great, but she's always great in them. She opens a movie. 'Nuff said.
Renee Zellweger: $15 mil. What she should be earning: $5 mil. Renee doesn't open movies, unless the material is Bridget Jones-cloned. She's fine as the wife or girlfriend, but then her price needs to be cut by a third. Worse, audiences are getting sick of her changing hair color whenever she changes parts. That's a dye job, not an acting job. Sadly, she's lost her once winning girl-next-door quality; now she's trying to be a fashion diva. Ugh.
Halle Berry: $14 mil. What she should be asking: $5 mil. Once she lost her shot at launching a new franchise as 007's Jinx, she lost what should have been her biggest paydays. Alas, she's now the wrong side of 40, and Hollywood is cruel that way.
Nicole Kidman: makes $16 mil-$17 mil. What she should be earning: -$1 mil. That's right, I'm saying that Nicole should be paying film companies to hire her, not the other way around. That's because she's poison at the box office, the female equivalent of Sean Penn. Women dislike her, men don't think she's sexy, and those Chanel ads induce nausea. My guess is Nicole's rate dates back to Sony Pictures overpaying her for that bomb Bewitched. Since then, she's been doing smaller films, but is signing for studio projects right now.
Note to majors: save your $$$ and hire Reese or Angelina.
Source:http://www.glamgalz.com/index.php/holly-celebs/top-10-hollywood-actresses.html
Source:http://www.glamgalz.com/index.php/holly-celebs/top-10-hollywood-actresses.html
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Sania is Popular no more
Thank you Pakistan, says Facebook
Trust social networking sites to not miss a chance to have a say in any heated current topic. Fan pages and messages on two popular sites - Facebook and Twitter - are fast becoming an ideal place for Internet junkies to vent.
Facebook reportedly has over 90 fan pages on Sania Mirza and her much talked about wedding to Pakistani cricketer, Shaoib Mallik. The page called 'Thank you Pakistan for taking Sania Mirza, now please take Rakhi Sawant also' has earned itself over 65,000 fans in a matter of two weeks. It currently has over 75,000 people supporting the statement.
And the popularity of the other group,'Throw away Shashi Tharoor and Lalit Modi', only puts in perspective how much importance the public spat between the two political figures is actually being given. As against the 65,000 fans for Sania's group, this page has only 30-odd members.
The category of this group proudly falls under Common Interest - Politics, while the description is 'throw away these un required people.' The topics of conversation on either site concern young enthusiasts making fun of how both the issues were given reverence on national news.
While a part of the page has also become a ground for debate between Internet junkies from both the neighbouring nations on various topics, the albums have been loaded with images of Rakhi Sawant and one of her alleged forced kiss with Mika Singh as well.
Volcanoes Beneath the Water
The research, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), was a collaboration between scientists from the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), University of California at Davis, University of Sydney and University of Rhode Island.
The largest of these undersea Ice Age volcanoes lies at a depth of 700 feet (220 meters), too deep for scuba diving, which explains why the volcanoes have never before been spotted by humans, pointed out Don Rice, director of NSF's Chemical Oceanography Program, which funded the research.
Lead author David Valentine, a geoscientist at UCSB, said: "They're larger than a football-field-long and as tall as a six-story building."They're massive features, and are made completely out of asphalt."
Valentine and colleagues first viewed the volcanoes during a 2007 dive on the research submersible Alvin.
Valentine credits Ed Keller, an earth scientist at UCSB, with guiding him and colleagues to the site.
He said: "Ed had looked at some bathymetry [sea floor topography] studies conducted in the 1990s and noted some very unusual features."
Based on Keller's research, Valentine and other scientists took Alvin into the area in 2007 and discovered the source of the mystery.
Using the sub's robotic arm, the researchers broke off samples and brought them to labs at UCSB and WHOI for testing.
In 2009, Valentine and colleagues made two more dives to the area in Alvin.
They also conducted a detailed survey of the area using an autonomous underwater vehicle, Sentry, which takes photos as it glides about nine feet above the ocean floor.
Valentine said: "When you 'fly' Sentry over the sea floor, you can see all of the cracking of the asphalt and flow features.
"All the textures are visible of a once-flowing liquid that has solidified in place.
"That's one of the reasons we're calling them volcanoes, because they have so many features that are indicative of a lava flow."
Tests showed that these aren't typical lava volcanoes, however, found in Hawaii and elsewhere around the Pacific Rim.
Using a mass spectrometer, carbon dating, microscopic fossils, and comprehensive, two-dimensional gas chromatography, the scientists determined that the structures are asphalt.
They were formed when petroleum flowed from the sea-floor about 30,000-40,000 years ago.
Chris Reddy, a scientist at WHOI and a co-author of the paper, said "the volcanoes underscore a little-known fact: half the oil that enters the coastal environment is from natural oil seeps like the ones off the coast of California."
The researchers also found that the volcanoes were at one time a prolific source of methane, a greenhouse gas.
The two largest volcanoes are about a kilometer apart and have pits or depressions surrounding them.
These pits, according to Valentine, are signs of "methane gas bubbling from the sub-surface."
That's not surprising, he said, considering how much petroleum was flowing there in the past.
Valentine said: "They were spewing out a lot of petroleum, but also lots of natural gas.... which you tend to get when you have petroleum seepage in this area."
The discovery that vast amounts of methane once emanated from the volcanoes caused the scientists to wonder if there might have been an environmental impact on the area during the Ice Age.
Valentine said: "It became a dead zone.
"We're hypothesizing that these features may have been a major contributor to those events."
While the volcanoes have been dormant for thousands of years, the 2009 Alvin dive revealed a few spots where gas was still bubbling.
"We think it's residual gas," said Valentine, adding that the amount of gas is so small it's harmless, and never reaches the surface.
The study has appeared in a paper published on-line this week in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Source:http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20100427/981/tsc-underwater-asphalt-volcanoes-discove.html
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