A Mayor unplugged from reality

Mayor Bloomberg wants to double down on electric vehicles, but it’s a bad bet for New York.

In his State of the City speech last week, Bloomberg said he wants to add 10,000 new electric-vehicle charging stations over the next seven years. To that end, he wants the City Council to amend building codes so that 20 percent of all new parking spaces must be “wired and ready for electric vehicles.”

The city can be as “wired and ready” as Bloomberg likes, but he can’t make consumers buy electric cars. More important, he can’t overcome the basic physics that have prevented battery-powered cars from being anything more than a tiny niche player in the global auto industry.

Getty Images

Still pushing dubious ideas: Mayor Bloomberg last Thursday.

The history of the electric car is a century of failure tailgating failure. The problems haven’t changed in 100 years: All-electric vehicles, or EVs, have little range, take too long to refuel and cost way too much.

Takeshi Uchiyamada, the vice chairman of Toyota Motor Co. — the world’s biggest producer of hybrid cars — underscored these points this month, saying that due to “its shortcomings — driving range, cost and recharging time — the electric vehicle is not a viable replacement for most conventional cars.”

Nissan had high hopes for the electric car. Last year, the automaker — which got a $1.4 billion line of credit from the US Energy Department to help it produce EVs — expected to sell 20,000 copies of its all-electric Leaf. Actual sales totaled just 9,800.

Let’s put those numbers in perspective. Last year, Ford sold 645,316 pickups in the United States. So Ford is selling more pickups in six days than Nissan is selling Leafs in an entire year.

Last year, electric vehicles accounted for just 0.1 percent of total US car sales of 14.5 million. And hybrid sales were roughly 3.3 percent of the market.

Consumers are buying about 31 hybrids for every 1 electric vehicles for a simple reason: value.

Check out Cars.com. You can buy a brand new 2013 Prius for about $22,000; the cheapest Leaf available is $35,000.

The cheapest Chevy Volt — the much ballyhooed plug-in hybrid electric — was also about $35,000, twice the price of the Chevy Cruze, which uses a conventional gasoline engine but is built on the same chassis. And while the Volt has a bit of “gee-whiz” cool, the Cruze still gets about 42 miles per gallon.

In short, EVs aren’t a regular consumer good; they’re a toy for the wealthy. Indeed, a 2010 Deloitte Consulting report found that the most likely buyers of electric cars are people with household incomes “in excess of $200,000.”

By pushing for more electric cars, Mayor Bloomberg is following the same failed strategies of the Obama administration, which has handed out $2.4 billion in grants to the EV sector, as well as nearly $2.6 billion in loans. Despite all that money, the sector has seen nothing but carnage.

Last year, Obama-subsidized EV-battery makers Ener1 and A123 Systems both went bankrupt. Fisker Automotive, the troubled maker of upscale hybrid-electric cars (costing $50,000 to $100,000) is hoping to be bought out by another automaker.

And Tesla Motors, a publicly traded company that makes all-electric vehicles, has lost about $450 million over the past five quarters alone. It’s pinning its future on the Model S, a vehicle with a starting price of $52,400. Want the “performance” version? That’ll cost you $87,400 — nearly as much as a new Mercedes S550 ($95,000).

Those cost figures help explain what a recent Reuters article called the public’s “yawning indifference to green vehicles.”

Bottom line: Bloomberg wants to force the private sector to build charging stations for a fleet of cars that don’t exist and probably won’t exist for years to come, if ever.

New York City has plenty of infrastructure needs. More charging stations for electric cars isn’t one of them.

Robert Bryce, a Manhattan Institute senior fellow, is the author, most recently, of “Power Hungry: The Myths of ‘Green’ Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future.”

Have a comment on this PostOpinion column? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

Read More..

NBA’s best player (LeBron James) isn’t best-paid

HOUSTON --
When LeBron James walks onto the court for Houston’s NBA All-Star Game Sunday, he’ll do so as the undisputed king of his sport.

Named the league’s most valuable player three times in the past four years, James is once again dominating the NBA and most likely headed for his fourth MVP award — two fewer than Michael Jordan — with presumably a long career still ahead.

But while James is the most valuable player in the NBA, he’s nowhere close to being the league’s highest paid. Of the 10 players voted into the starting lineup of Sunday’s All-Star Game, five earn more than James, whose salary for this season ranks 13th in the NBA.

James’ decision a while back to “take my talents to South Beach” was a case of trading dollars for victories. The league caps what teams can spend on salaries.

The bimonthly checks cut by team owner Micky Arison this year will equal a bargain come season’s end: $17,545,000.

Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers, the league’s highest-paid player, will earn about $10 million more than that this season.

James understands he’s underpaid in the purest sense, but he also understands reality: He makes obscene amounts of money playing a game. Super-rich athletes who gripe about money seldom get much sympathy — witness the outpouring of scorn when golfer Phil Mickelson recently complained that increased taxes on high earners, coupled with California’s high tax rates, might force him to make “drastic changes” in his playing schedule.

James also makes a fortune in endorsements, from companies ranging from Nike to Sprite to Samsung to Dunkin’ Donuts.

Still, the obvious question remains: Considering not only James’ impact on the Heat, but also his overall contribution to the entire NBA, how much money could James command on the open market if there were no league-imposed economic constraints?

“Per year, if there were no salary-cap restrictions, I think he’s worth well over $100 million, easy,” said Shane Battier, the Heat’s heady forward and former Duke University schoolmate of Heat CEO Nick Arison.

That’s $100 million per year.

It’s an audacious and historic number, but considering James’ recent run of play, it’s not complete fantasy. James is performing at a historic level of excellence. After thoroughly wiping the court in Oklahoma City on Thursday, scoring 39 points, pulling down 12 rebounds and dishing out seven assists, James has scored at least 30 points in seven straight games.

The last player to accomplish that feat going into the All-Star break was Wilt Chamberlain back in 1963.

“This guy, LeBron James, he’s doing stuff that I’ve never seen,” said Hall of Famer Charles Barkley on Thursday night during TNT’s Inside the NBA. “He’s on another planet.”

Considering Barkley’s sharp criticism of James in the past, not to mention his history of going head-to-head with Michael Jordan during both men’s prime, that’s high praise.

But a market value of $100 million?

“Really, it boils down to the ego of an owner,” Battier said. “A lot of owners would pay just to have LeBron James on their team. I can think of a couple that would pay him, easily, nine figures per year.”

Read More..

The Miami Beach cop and the meth dealers: a tawdry tale

While other cops strived for the big bust or sergeant’s stripes, George Navarro Jr. had other aspirations. The Miami Beach patrolman yearned for the ultimate score, his friends told investigators: to engineer an epic drug deal, one that would make him rich and allow him to leave law enforcement behind.

They called it the “Coke Dream.”

That dream is dead now, as may be Navarro’s police career. He was suspended last September without pay after being charged with racketeering and fraud in connection with a scheme to use phony paperwork to acquire luxury cars.

But that might be just the beginning of Navarro’s troubles. Although for now he hasn’t been charged with anything else, the investigation into his actions has produced reams of damning documents detailing bungled trips to the Bahamas to buy kilos of coke, the rip-off of a suspected marijuana grow house, drunken brawls, a botched attempt to collect a drug debt and — perhaps most strikingly — his penchant for lending his police car, uniforms and other gear to meth-dealer pals.

If nothing else, the investigation of George Navarro Jr. inflicts another black eye on the beleaguered Miami Beach Police Department, battered in recent years by stories of lax discipline and criminal misbehavior.

The mud is being splattered in many directions, onto other officers and other agencies, spawning a slew of investigations.

For instance, the U.S. Coast Guard is probing one of its own for allegedly providing detailed locations of cutters near the Bahamas to help Navarro avoid detection while at sea.

Authorities are also examining the role of Navarro, 27, and his father — once a high-level Miami Beach police commander, now retired — in a secret and illegal recording made by the younger officer’s drug-dealing former roommate as he was being grilled by internal affairs detectives.

Michael Band, attorney for Navarro Jr., said the allegations are nothing more than the “spouting of a Judas.”

That “Judas” would be Marlon Mayoli, a childhood friend of Navarro. Mayoli and another drug dealer, Rafael Guedes, both 27, have been talking quite a bit to state and federal agents, presumably in hopes of trimming some years off their prison sentences.

“What was George’s crime?” asked Band. “He made the mistake of being too loyal of a friend, and exercising poor judgment in friendship.”

Mayoli and Guedes pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and possession of a firearm while drug trafficking. (The federal probe also led to the indictment of former Boynton Beach Officer David Britto, who has since fled to Brazil.)

Mayoli is serving 15 years in prison, Guedes 14.

Ronald J. Manto, attorney for Mayoli, insisted his client is telling the truth.

“Mayoli accepted responsibility for his participation … He cooperated with the authorities and was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. It appears that the investigation is ongoing but much of what Mayoli told police has been corroborated by other sources and evidence. I believe it’s just a matter of time before the other shoe drops.”

The investigation into Navarro Jr. began in March 2011 when the feds raided Guedes’ and Mayoli’s Miami apartment. Inside, they found ecstasy, crystal meth — and, curiously, Navarro’s police uniforms.

Read More..

Hugh Grant is a Dad Again

Hugh Grant confirmed Saturday that he is a dad again.

PICS: Celebs and Their Cute Kids

The 52-year-old British actor tweeted, "In answer to some journos. Am thrilled my daughter now has a brother. Adore them both to an uncool degree. They have a fab mum."

Hugh and actress Tinglan Hong welcomed a daughter named Tabitha in 2011. No word yet on what Tabitha's little brother is named.

Related: Hugh Grant Responds to Jon Stewart Diss

Hugh told The Guardian in 2012 of being a dad, "I like my daughter very much. Fantastic. Has she changed my life? I'm not sure. Not yet. Not massively, no. But I'm absolutely thrilled to have had her, I really am. And I feel a better person."

Read More..

Required Reading

Middle Men

by Jim Gavin (Simon & Schuster)

The guys (mostly Southern Californians) in Gavin’s first story collection are not at the top of the heap. They are trying to at least achieve fine middle-class lives. With a sharp, witty eye, Gavin gives us a game-show assistant whose high-powered host sends him to steal his dog back from an ex-wife (“Elephant Doors”). There’s a one-hit-wonder screenwriter, who’s success was ethnic cop-buddy flick “Hyde & Sikh” (“Illuminati”). And in “Costello,” a father-and-son toilet-salesmen team.

Where the Cherry Tree Grew

The Story of Ferry Farm, George Washington’s Boyhood Home

by Philip Levy (St. Martin’s)

Levy asserts that a young George Washington never really chopped down a cherry tree, much less refused to lie about it. But the author did spend a decade researching and excavating the property, near Fredericksburg, Va., where Washington lived from age 6 to about 15. He recounts how the cherry-tree myth began; the sordid tale of how real-estate speculators tried to sell the grave of Washington’s mother; bloody Civil War battles on the property; and more recently, how Walmart tried to turn the farm into a mall.

The Soundtrack of My Life

by Clive Davis (Simon & Schuster)

Clive Davis has come pretty far for a kid from Crown Heights who lost both parents as a teen. As a top record exec, he found, signed, worked with and mentored the likes of Whitney Houston, Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, Barry Manilow, Simon and Garfunkel, Aerosmith, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson and many more. He recalls the first time he heard Houston sing, at Sweetwater’s in 1983 (he immediately offered her a contract); how he found out Simon and Garfunkel were breaking up; and a chance meeting with John Lennon at a coffee shop, where the ex-Beatle told him he was moving to the Dakota.

Washed Away

How the Great Flood of 1913, America’s Most Widespread Natural Disaster, Terrorized a Nation and Changed it Forever

by Geoff Williams (Pegasus)

One hundred years ago, there was no AccuWeather forecast or Doppler Radar or Weather Channel, so the people of Ohio, Indiana, their neighboring states — and even as far away as New Jersey, New York and Vermont — hardly knew what hit them. Tornadoes and a days-long deluge wreaked havoc. As many as 1,000 people died. In Omaha, Neb., alone, a March 23 twister killed 140. Williams brings the disaster back to life with tales of desperation and heroism that sadly sound so familiar today.

Doug Unplugged

by Dan Yaccarino (Knopf)

Take a break from your electronic and digital devices for this delightful picture book about a robot boy, Doug, whose robot parents plug him in every morning for his information download. Until one day, Doug — drawn a bit like Elroy Jetson — figures he can learn even more by unplugging and exploring the city. He takes the subway, sees pigeons, makes a friend and plays in the park and ends up sharing what he learned with his parents.

Read More..

Credit reports still not error-free

Lucky you if you’re one of the many consumers who recognize an error in your credit file and are able to successfully dispute it, get it removed and receive the credit rating you deserve.

But woe to those who find errors and still have trouble getting corrections from any of the three major credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian or TransUnion.

That’s the conclusion of a long-awaited study by the Federal Trade Commission on credit report accuracy.

Each credit bureau maintains files on more than 200 million consumers, which are used to create credit histories. The information is then used to create credit scores, which can affect consumers’ ability to get a credit card, a home loan, an apartment or even a job. The most widely used credit scoring system is FICO, which ranges from 300 to 850. The higher your FICO score, the better.

The FTC found that 26 percent of the 1,001 participants surveyed identified at least one potentially material error, such as a late or missed payment. When information was successfully disputed and modified, 13 percent of participants saw a change in their credit score.

Not all the errors resulted in a significant increase in a consumer’s credit score. But for 5.2 percent of participants, the errors were serious enough that it made them appear more risky and thus resulted in them having to pay more for products such as auto loans and insurance, the FTC said.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act gives consumers certain rights to dispute and challenge inaccurate information in their credit files. But if true errors remain on people’s reports even after they have challenged the information, the current dispute process is not serving consumers well, the FTC said in its report.

As often happens with such studies, people see what they want to see.

The Consumer Data Industry Association, a trade organization, said the FTC’s study proves that the vast majority of credit reports are error-free.

“The FTC’s research determined that 2.2 percent of all credit reports have an error that would increase the price a consumer would pay in the marketplace and that fully 88 percent of errors were the result of inaccurate information reported by lenders and other data sources to nationwide credit bureaus,” the association said in a statement.

The association is right. But when you talk about the millions of files being kept, there are still quite a number of people with incorrect information in their reports. The FTC concluded that the impact of errors on credit scores is generally modest (an average of an 11.8-point increase in score), but for some consumers, it can be large.

“Roughly 1 percent of the reports in the sample experienced a credit score increase of more than 50 points,” the report said.

Several consumer advocacy groups feel that this conclusion confirms their long-held concerns about the accuracy of credit reports.

Because the credit bureaus have become powerful gatekeepers, you ought to care about this issue even if you haven’t found errors in your report, said Edmund Mierzwinski, consumer program director for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

“If 5 percent of consumers overall have serious errors, that’s about 10 million adults. Sooner or later, it will happen to you,” he said.

Everyone with a stake in this issue urges consumers to take action by pulling their reports every year. Only about 44 million consumers per year, or about one in five, obtain copies of their files, according to another recent report. You have the right to get a free copy of each of your credit files once every 12 months. Just go to www.annuacreditreport.com, the only official site, to get them.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The federal government needs to do more to monitor the systems the bureaus have in place to investigate a consumer’s complaint about an error. Far too often the furnishers of the data will just resend the incorrect information back to the bureaus.

Evan Hendricks, author of Credit Scores and Credit Reports: How The System Really Works, What You Can Do, has frequently testified in court cases and before Congress about the struggles people have in correcting their reports. Responding to the FTC survey, he said, “With FTC’s confirmation that credit report errors are all too common and harmful to consumers, it’s high time that credit reporting agencies overhaul their operations so they actually comply with the law and investigate consumers’ disputes, with actual human beings as investigators.”

Since consumers don’t control the flow of the data about them and yet this information is so vital to their credit lives, even the small percentage error rate the FTC found is unacceptable.

Read More..

State’s flawed contracting process comes under fire

TALLAHASSEE --
In the last two years, Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater has agreed to let the state lose $48 million.

That’s the amount of taxpayer money Atwater spent to settle dozens of bad contracts and grants that he said could have been avoided had the state done a better job cutting the deals.

“We could have built two elementary schools with that money,’’ said Atwater, a former Senate president whose office writes the checks.

In each case, the state concluded it was not going to get what it paid for, Atwater said. “So we said, ‘This is hogwash and you know it. ’ ”

Rather than taking the company to court, the state agreed to settle the contract at a loss.

With $50.4 billion of the state’s $70 billion budget spent on vendors this year, Florida is one of the largest buyers of goods and services in the Southeast, but its contract management is haphazard and inconsistent.

Now, Atwater, Gov. Rick Scott and his secretary of the Department of Management Services, Craig Nichols, are inching toward some improvements that will change the system.

Atwater is asking the Legislature for “pre-audit” authority to review contracts before they are completed to make sure the state is getting its money’s worth.

Nichols has published a guidebook for contract negotiators, including a set of uniform standards. His agency has increased the number of agencies using the state’s online purchasing program, MyFloridaMarketPlace, to get better discounts, and DMS is working to streamline the state’s patchwork of contract procedures.

Scott has urged his agency heads to attempt to re-negotiate their top contracts to produce savings, and he recommended spending $353,000 in his 2013-14 budget to hire four full-time people to train contract managers across the state.

The state’s contracting process has been the target of criticism for years, most recently from former Senate budget chairman JD Alexander who bashed state agencies for using different methods and even different codes to buy cars, lease buildings or purchase cell phones and computers.

In 2011, an independent group hired to review the state’s online purchasing program, the 10-year-old MyFloridaMarketPlace system, found that half of the eligible state contracts were covered by the program and that the system was “hampered by poor project governance, lack of standard procurement processes… uneven executive sponsorship and continued dependence on older shadow systems and workarounds.’’

An analysis by the Herald/Times found hundreds of contracts, known as evergreens, are given terms that allow them to automatically renew, with little or no standards. Other vendors get in the door as the lowest cost bidder, but the cost is allowed to balloon with budget amendments. Dozens of contracts have been on the books with the same vendor for more than 20 years.

One of the loudest critics has been the Koch brothers-funded Americans For Prosperity, which lists as its top legislative priority the increase in oversight and transparency of the state’s contracting process. The Republican Legislature and governor’s failure to properly police the state’s contracting system has earned the organization’s charge that the process “rewards cronyism and picking winners and losers.”

Read More..

'Escape from Planet Earth' Interview

Jessica Alba, Rob Corddry, William Shatner, Sofía Vergara and George Lopez are among the all-star voice cast creating laughs in the fast-paced, animated comedy-adventure Escape from Planet Earth, and they tell ET's Brooke Anderson that it's the perfect film for the whole family.

Pics: 13 Must-See Movies of 2013

In theaters now, the out-of-this-world 3D comedy is told from the alien point of view, following the misadventures of famed interplanetary astronaut Scorch Supernova from the Planet Baab and his buddies. Trapped by evil government forces on the distant "Dark Planet" (aka Earth) and tossed behind bars in Area 51, it's up to his nerdy brother Gary to navigate the third rock from the sun's strange customs and inhabitants in order to save him.

Video: Cosmic Comedy in 'Escape from Planet Earth' Premiere

The film also features the vocal talents of Brendan Fraser, Jane Lynch, Sarah Jessica Parker, Craig Robinson, Steve Zahn, Chris Parnell, Ricky Gervais and Jonathan Morgan Heit.

Read More..

Pull the Plug On Chuck Hagel

Linda Chavez

Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be secretary of defense is in trouble — as it should be. The former Republican senator has so much baggage, it is amazing that the administration hasn’t dumped him, as they did Susan Rice when her proposed nomination ran into trouble. Unfortunately, having won that battle, the GOP may be in weaker position to defeat another Obama nominee. And Rice, her misstatements about the attack on Benghazi notwithstanding, would have been a less dangerous cabinet member than Hagel.

Hagel has made clearly anti-Semitic statements before public forums time and again. If his target had been, say, blacks or Hispanics, he’d have been forced to withdraw. Just try that on for size.

Hagel: Nominee unable to answer even basic questions competently.

What if Hagel had been on record as declaring, “The black [or Latino] lobby intimidates a lot of people”? And then had publicly declared the Ku Klux Klan “legitimate”? What if the nominee had also been the one U.S. senator who refused to sign a letter criticizing the former apartheid government of South Africa for its racist treatment of blacks?

In fact, Hagel’s actions with respect to Jews have followed exactly this course. In 2006, Hagel said, “The Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people,” an accusation for which he could not produce a single example during his confirmation hearings. He has defended the murderous Iranian regime as “legitimate” — a regime whose leaders are committed to annihilating Israel and who deny the Holocaust.

And he’s opposed sanctions against Iran, even though the regime is a state sponsor of terrorism against the United States. Apparently he thinks Israel is a greater threat to the United States than Iran. In a speech at Rutgers University, Hagel accused the State Department of taking its orders from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Lest anyone think his animus is toward Israel — not Jews — consider that he is the only US senator to have refused to sign a letter to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin asking him to take action against rising anti-Semitism in Russia.

Hagel’s office issue the lame excuse that the then senator had a “policy not to send letters to foreign heads of state regarding their domestic policy.” Really? Well then I guess we can expect President Obama’s nominee to remain silent on Syrian and North Korean “domestic policy” as these nations slaughter their citizens by gunning the down in the streets of Homs or Aleppo or killing them slowly in the gulags of Hoeryong?

Hagel would do himself and the president a big favor by stepping aside. His performance during his confirmation hearings was embarrassing. He seemed woefully ignorant of the president’s own policies toward a nuclear Iran.

At one point, he said, “I support the president’s strong position on containment,” suggesting the president believes a nuclear-armed Iran can be “contained” much as the Soviet Union was during the Cold War. But President Obama has not suggested he favors containment, which would be a green light to the Iranians to move ahead with their plans to develop nuclear weapons.

So Hagel later tried to correct the record, but in doing so, he made himself look like a fool. In fact, his inability to answer questions before the Senate committee alone should be enough to derail his nomination.

The president has a right to nominate his cabinet — but the Constitution doesn’t give him a blank check. The Senate also plays an important role in advising and consenting on presidential appointments.

President Obama may have thought he was extending an olive branch to Republicans by picking a former GOP-elected official for his defense secretary. But Hagel is a caricature of the Republican Party — a man whose personal prejudices (his anti-gay comments about a Clinton nominee seem to have been largely forgotten by his liberal backers) are cringe-inducing and who is as ill-informed as he is inarticulate.

The Senate will take up Hagel’s nomination later this month after Thursday’s threatened filibuster delayed the vote. That is, unless the president admits his mistake and pulls the nomination. The country would be better served if he did.

Have a comment on this PostOpinion column? Send it in to LETTERS@NYPOST.COM!

Read More..

American Airlines, US Airways announce merger

After a nearly yearlong courtship, the union became official Thursday: American Airlines and US Airways have formally announced plans to merge.

An early morning announcement by the airlines confirmed reports widely circulated after boards of both companies approved the merger late Wednesday.

The move brings stability to one of Miami-Dade County’s largest private employers more than a year after the airline and its parent company filed for bankruptcy protection, leaving the fate of thousands of employees — and the largest carrier at Miami International Airport — in question.

According to the Thursday announcement, the deal was approved unanimously by the boards of both companies, creating the world’s biggest airline with implied market value of nearly $11 billion, based on the Wednesday closing price of US Airways stock. The airline will have close to 100,000 employees, 1,500 aircraft, $38.7 billion in combined revenue.

The deal must be approved by American’s bankruptcy judge and antitrust regulators, but no major hurdles are expected. The process is expected to take about six months, according to a letter sent to employees Thursday by American CEO Tom Horton.

Travelers won’t notice immediate changes. The new airline will be called American Airlines. It likely will be months before the frequent-flier programs are merged, and possibly years before the two airlines are fully combined. The new airline will be a member of the oneWorld airlines frequent flier alliance.

And for Miami travelers, it’s unlikely that much will change at any point. American and regional carrier American Eagle handled 68 percent of traffic at the airport last year, while US Airways accounted for just 2 percent. American boasts 328 flights to 114 destinations from Miami.

“We don’t expect any substantial changes at MIA if the merger occurs because our traffic is largely driven by the strength of the Miami market and not the airlines serving it,” said airport spokesman Greg Chin.

American has said for more than a year that its long-term plan calls for increasing departures at key hubs, including Miami, by 20 percent. That pledge has already started to materialize; in recent months, the airline has added new service to Asuncion, Paraguay and Roatán, Honduras.

During its bankruptcy restructuring, about 400 American employees lost jobs, leaving American and its regional carrier, American Eagle, with 9,894 employees in Miami-Dade County and 43 in Fort Lauderdale. US Airways has few employees in the area.

“It really isn’t going to affect Miami in a very major way anytime soon,” said Michael Boyd, an aviation consultant in Evergreen, Colo. “Only because US Airways isn’t a big player in South Florida.”

At Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, American and US Airways combined would still only be the fifth-largest airline after Southwest, Spirit, JetBlue and Delta, a spokesman said. The two airlines have little overlap in routes from Fort Lauderdale.

Despite the lack of major changes, Boyd said the merger would be a good development for Miami.

“It should be positive for the employees and it should be positive for the communities that the airlines serve,” he said.

Robert Herbst, an independent airline analyst and consultant, said US Airways will add a “significant amount” of destinations in the Northeast, including Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

Read More..