12,500 controllers high on FAA’s radar

The Federal Aviation Administration plans to hire 12,500 air-traffic controllers during the next 10 years and speed up their training to address coming shortages due to retirements.

In a report Tuesday to Congress, the agency also revealed plans for adding part-timers and allowing FAA’s highest achievers to work beyond their mandated retirement age of 56.

During the next decade, 73 percent of the FAA’s 14,816 air traffic controllers will be eligible to retire, and staffing losses over the next 10 years are expected to total more than 11,000.

Energy

Aquila to shed power supply pact

Aquila Inc. said Tuesday it was removing itself from a power purchase and sale agreement in Batesville, Miss., netting the company $16.2 million.

Aquila is extricating itself from a deal that had it buying power from LSP Energy Partnership, owner of a Batesville power plant, and then reselling it to the South Mississippi Electric Power Assn.

Kansas City, Mo.-based Aquila also said it had finished terminating a natural gas supply contract with the American Public Energy Agency. Aquila said it already had set aside $139 million to pay termination fees.

The agreement still needs approval from regulators.

Aquila distributes electricity and natural gas to customers in seven Midwestern states, including Kansas.

Internet

Expedia to anchor new online company

Billionaire Barry Diller, the entertainment mogul who ran some of the world’s media giants and helped create Fox Broadcasting, said Tuesday he would turn to Wall Street to create a new publicly traded online travel company anchored by the Expedia franchise.

Diller, 62, said his IAC/InterActiveCorp — with 40 separate businesses under its umbrella, from social networking names like Match.com to retail services like Ticketmaster — would be split into two separate companies: an online travel agency and an electronic retailer.

The new travel company would include the domestic and international operations of Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Hotwire and the group’s other travel sites, and would be expected to go public by the second quarter of 2005.

Aviation

Airbus lands first A350 commitments

Airbus SAS said Tuesday that Spanish airline Air Europa had become the first to commit to buying the A350, the jet being developed by the European plane maker to rival Boeing Co.’s 7E7 “Dreamliner.”

Air Europa signed a memorandum of understanding to buy 10 A350s worth about $2 billion at list price, with options on two more, less than two weeks after European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. gave subsidiary Airbus the go-ahead to begin marketing the new plane.