uLufthansa Crew Strike Cancels 290 Flights, Affects 37,000 Passengersr

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  As expected the cabin crew union strike at Lufthansa began to disrupt the travel plans of tens of thousands of passengers early Friday morning, with the airline canceling nearly 300 flights. 

  The week-long strike, the result of a failed pension talks between the union and airline, began with walkouts on flights from Frankfurt and Duesseldorf, Reuters reports.

  So far, Lufthansa says it has cancelled 290 planned flights on Friday, affecting around 37,000 passengers.

  The canceled flights included 15 long-haul departures, typically international hours-long flights. However, the airline said eight long-haul flights are expected to take off as expected.

  More flight disruptions are expected on Saturday, according to the union. For now, the walkouts will not affect Lufthansa’s hub in Munich until after Sunday, Reuters reports.

  Despite the hefty number of travelers affected by the hundreds of cancellations, Lufthansa estimates 90% of the flights it typically operates on a Friday will go on as planned.

  The strike was a result of a breakdown in last-minute talks between Lufthansa and the union. According to the airline, the union rejected the latest proposal that would have met demand related to current employees but would have created different retirement benefits and pensions for future employees.

  Reuters reports that if the airline doesn’t make concessions, the union will carry out the strike until Nov. 13.

  “We regret this course of action, but we see no alternative,” union head Nicoley Baublies said.

  Lufthansa flights hit as crew start longest-ever strike [Reuters]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uIf Walgreens And Rite Aid Merge, Thousands Of Stores Might Closer

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  Last week, Walgreens Boots Alliance, the parent company of this country’s top drugstore chain, announced that pending antitrust approval, it would buy the #3 chain, Rite Aid, for $9.4 billion. That would create two massive national drugstore chains, and also leave a lot of empty stores. One estimate is that 3,000 stores would close… not necessarily for antitrust reasons, but because the stores are simply too close together.

  The company could be required to sell some of those stores off to competitors, which would keep them open. Who would be left to take them over? Regional chains and CVS, or perhaps a new competitor could enter the market, then get gobbled by by Walgreens in a decade or so.

  Cushman & Wakefield, a real estate services company, analyzed the situation and which stores the combined chain would be likely to close. Even if they chose to divest all stores where the two chians are literally across the street from each other now, that would still leave them with areas that are too dense with their own stores to make any sense.

  The firm estimates that Walgreens might have to sell 1,000 stores, but ultimately close 2,000 more. That would still leave Walgreens as the drugstore with the most locations nationwide, of course.

  In my hometown, for example, there’s a Rite Aid and a Walgreens half a mile apart. The current Rite Aid was built as an Eckerd, and when traveling between the two you pass the previous Rite Aid, which has been sitting empty since those two chains completed their merger in 2007.

  Walgreens-Rite Aid merger will lead to store closings: Report [Shopping Centers Today] (via Fortune)

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uReport: Bass Pro Shops Considers Acquiring Cabela’sr

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  If you’re not an outdoorsy type, it’s understandable that you might think Cabela’s and Bass Pro Shops are the same store. They’re both big-box stores that are almost more of a tourist destination done a place to shop. Maybe you won’t have to stop and figure out what the difference is: the privately held Bass Pro Shops is considering taking over its publicly traded rival.

  Unidentified sources whispered to Reuters about the acquisition, presumably from behind hunting blinds. Recently, Elliott Management, an “activist investor,” or an investor known for making large investments in companies and then using that stake to make changes in the business, purchased 11% of Cabela’s stock.

  Elliott had suggested selling the company to a private equity firm, but selling to a rival is another potentially profitable idea for investors. What about fans of the stores, though? It’s so early in this process that word isn’t even out about whether a merger would mean closing stores or divesting some stores that are too close together to a competitor like Gander Mountain.

  Exclusive: Bass Pro Shops explores bid for Cabela’s – sources [Reuters]

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uLufthansa Strike To Cause “Significant” Travel Disruptions Starting Fridayr

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  Two months after more than 1,000 Lufthansa flights were canceled because of a pilot strike, the airline is bracing for “significant” disruptions with a new crew member strike set to start Friday. 

  Reuters reports that Lufthansa’s main cabin crew union will begin a week-long walkout on Friday, marking the eighteenth strike affecting the airline in 18 months.

  The union provided few details on the strike, other than to say it wouldn’t begin before 11:00 GMT, meaning we could be waking up to the first reports of delayed and canceled international flights. More information is expected to be released Friday.

  Because the particulars weren’t laid out by the union, Lufthansa says it has been unable to determine how many flights will be affected or configure revised travel schedules.

  “With only a few hours between any strike announcement and employees stopping work, the effect on passengers is likely to be significant because Lufthansa has no chance to draw up alternative plans,” the airline said in a statement.

  The strike was a result of a breakdown in last-minute talks between Lufthansa and the union. According to the airline, the union rejected the latest proposal that would have met demand related to current employees but would have created different retirement benefits and pensions for future employees.

  Lufthansa cabin crew to start week-long strike Friday [Reuters]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uPepsi To Appeal To Different Set Of Millennials With New “1893” Colar

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  Mention any cool brand to a bona fide hipster and you’ll inevitably get an earful about how that product sucks now and was so much better blah blah blah. But even the oldest hipster still hanging on to the refurbished sugar warehouse “space” his parents bought him 18 two decades ago isn’t old enough to remember the original Pepsi formula.

  And perhaps that’s what the beverage biggie is betting on with its vague plans to release something called “1893” cola.

  More precisely, according to the trademark, the new drink will be called “1893 From the Makers of Pepsi-Cola,” because the kids today are all about really long, legally worded brand names.

  What the heck is 1893? No one is saying yet, though the company did confirm the beverage’s eventual existence to AdAge.

  In terms of cola history, 1893 is the year that Caleb Bradham began selling “Brad’s Drink” — a concoction of sugar, water, caramel, lemon oil, nutmeg, and other stuff — out of his North Carolina drugstore. That name lasted for five years until being rechristened Pepsi in 1898.

  What remains to be seen is how different 1893 might be from Pepsi’s recently introduced Caleb’s Kola, which also trades on the company’s little-known history.

  The company did say in June that it was working on something called Stubborn Sodas, a more upscale line of soft drinks to counter the drop in sales of both sugary and diet sodas.

  Not everything has been so retro for Pepsi lately. The company tried to cash in on the first arrival of Marty McFly in 2015 by releasing a “Pepsi Perfect” on Oct. 21. However, that promotion didn’t exactly go as swimmingly as hoped.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uColorado Voters Toss Restrictive Laws, Vote In Favor Of Allowing Municipal Broadbandr

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  Publicly-owned broadband networks can be a great alternative to incumbent ISPs like Comcast and AT&T in towns where there’s no competition, or in areas that existing providers don’t want to serve at all. Incumbent ISPs tend to like their pervasive monopoly status, though, and so they support and bankroll protectionist laws that prohibit municipalities from launching their own networks.

  Happily, since this Tuesday’s election day, there are now fewer of those restrictive laws on the books.

  Voters in municipalities across Colorado this week overwhelmingly chose chose to the state’s 2005 law blocking the expansion of municipal broadband, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance reports. 44 different towns, cities, and counties had measures on their ballots regarding local authority of telecommunications services, and all of them passed by large margins, gaining between 70% and 93% of votes.

  Local officials told media that for their communities, the votes are critically important. Their networks are mainly in rural or spread-out areas that profit-driven ISPs have no real motivation to spend money on connecting, maintaining, upgrading, or improving.

  The votes don’t mean that all 44 Colorado communities are about to run out and start their own gigabit fiber projects immediately or anything. They do, however, give those communities the legal ability to do so in the future, should they so choose.

  Voters Quiet the Drums At the Polls in Colorado [MuniNetworks via DSL Reports]

  
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by Kate Cox via Consumerist

uWalgreens Customers Using Apple Pay Don’t Have To Swipe Their Rewards Cards Anymorer

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  Walgreens shoppers using Apple Pay at the checkout will have a slightly quicker experience than other loyalty members, as the retailer becomes the first to integrate its rewards program with the mobile payment system.

  That means no hunting around for your Walgreens card or entering your phone number: once you’ve added your Balance Rewards card to the Passbook app in iOS 9 — on iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, 6S Plus and Apple Watch — it’s linked to your Apple Pay account.

  When you buy something at Walgreens using Apple Pay, rewards points will automatically be added to your rewards balance.

  CNet points out that one drawback is that actually making the payment involves two taps of your phone or Apple Watch on the contactless reader, instead of one: one to access your Balance Rewards account, the other to connect to the credit card (or cards) linked to your Apple Pay account.

  It’s likely that other retailers will jump on the bandwagon soon enough: Apple said in June that Kohl’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Panera, and Wegmans would link their rewards cards with Apple Pay, while JC Penney and Kohl’s would have their branded credit cards integrated with the system, reports BuzzFeed News. But for now, Walgreens gets to drink a PBR and be like, “I was into integrating my rewards system with Apple Pay before it was cool.”

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist