Raphael Stevens

An Emirates airline Boeing 777 at Sydney’s International Airport on May 01, 2021 in Sydney, Australia.James D. Morgan | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesEmirates airline is preparing for a summer travel surge over the next two weekends, despite growing concern over the delta coronavirus variant responsible for more than a third of infections across the United Arab Emirates.Emirates is expecting more than 450,000 passengers to travel from, to and through Terminal 3 at Dubai International Airport (DXB) on over 1,600 flights in the coming days.”The busiest days for the airline will be the next two weekends, 2-3 July and 9-10 July, although high passenger traffic is expected to start today, and will run through 12 July,” Emirates said in a statement on Wednesday.Close to 100,000 passengers will be arriving into Dubai on Emirates flights to start their summer vacations during that same period, the airline added. The seasonal travel surge comes as temperatures heat up in the UAE, where July can see the mercury soar to 40 degrees Celsius (104.0°F) and above.Emirates, one of two national flag carriers in the UAE, plans to ramp up its flight capacity to 90% of pre-pandemic levels through July. Dubai Airports also reopened its Terminal 1 and Concourse D on June 24, after a 15-month closure due to the pandemic.”All Emirates and DXB touchpoints are fully prepared to manage the increase in passenger traffic, with measures and protocols in place designed to enhance safety as customers move through Terminal 3,” Emirates said.The more than half million people expected to transit the UAE in the coming days is almost equivalent to the entire passenger traffic of London’s Heathrow Airport in May this year, according to Heathrow Airport data.An Etihad Airways Boeing 787-9 “Dreamliner” aircraft displays Israeli and Emirati flags after landing upon arrival from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, on the company’s first scheduled commercial flight from Abu Dhabi, on April 6, 2021.JACK GUEZ | AFP | Getty ImagesAbu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways also moved to extend its “verified to fly” program on Wednesday. The program allows travelers to validate Covid-19 travel documents before arriving at the airport to improve passenger processing time.”We appreciate these are challenging times for travellers and this has been a key initiative to simplify our guests’ journeys as much as possible,” John Wright, Etihad’s vice president for global airports and network operations said in a statement.Delta concernsThe expected summer travel surge comes despite new warnings about the delta variant of the virus, with evidence showing it is more transmissible, causes more hospitalizations and reduces the efficacy of vaccines. The delta variant, first identified in India, makes up 33.9% of cases in the UAE, according to the UAE Health Department.The U.K. variant makes up 11.3% of cases, while the South African variant still has the largest infection rate at 39.2%. The UAE reported 1,747 new cases of the virus on Tuesday.The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention moved to reissue a Level 4 “do not travel” warning for the UAE on Monday, the highest possible category, citing concerns about the virus. The UAE is also still on the U.K.’s travel “red list,” where it has been since late January.Brits living in the UAE have expressed confusion and anger over the decision, particularly over the red list’s hotel quarantine requirement.Forty percent of the UAE’s approximately 10 million population are now fully inoculated, according to Johns Hopkins University. The high local vaccination rate, new flight routes and easing restrictions on vacation hotspots have given locals and residents the confidence and desire to travel again, even amid warnings about dangerous coronavirus variants.Emirates has vowed to maintain strict safety measures for those traveling. The airline was one of the first globally to pilot the IATA Travel Pass, which will be extended to all routes across its network in the coming weeks. Emirates has also partnered with Al Hosn, the UAE Covid tracing app, to support safe passenger movement.”Emirates customers can travel with assurance that the airline and its partners have spared no effort to make the airport journey as safe and smooth as possible,” the airline said. More

In this articleBBBYSource: Bed Bath & BeyondBed Bath & Beyond fiscal first-quarter sales climbed nearly 50%, as the retailer’s turnaround initiatives including launching new brands and remodeling stores helped to draw in customers for everything from blenders to bath mats.The progress coming ahead of the key back-to-school shopping season was enough for the company to hike its full-year revenue outlook.However, its first-quarter earnings were hurt and will continue to be weighed down by the costs that Bed Bath & Beyond faces in order to successfully turn its business around.”We’re in the early stages of our transformation,” Chief Executive Mark Tritton said during an earnings conference call. “Our first-quarter results prove we continue to deliver profitable growth as we reestablish our authority in home.”Bed Bath & Beyond shares whipsawed after the results were released. The stock initially spiked more than 6%, then fell. Shares were recently up around 2% in premarket trading. Bed Bath & Beyond’s stock had been pulled into a so-called meme trading frenzy by retail investors on the social platform Reddit. But ahead of Wednesday’s results, Bank of America analyst Curtis Nagle said that shares had resumed trading at “pre-surge levels.”Here’s what the company reported for the three months ended May 29, compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by Refinitiv:Earnings per share: 5 cents adjusted vs. 8 cents expectedRevenue: $1.95 billion vs. $1.87 billion expectedBed Bath & Beyond said its net loss narrowed to $51 million, or 48 cents per share, from a loss of $302 million, or $2.44 per share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time charges related to asset sales and other turnaround initiatives, the company earned 5 cents per share, which came in short of the 8 cents per share that analysts had expected.Net sales climbed 49% to $1.95 billion from $1.3 billion a year earlier, beating expectations for $1.87 billion.Digital sales accounted for 38% of total sales, as some customers opted to browse and buy online and pick their orders up at nearby Bed Bath & Beyond locations later that same day. Last month, the company partnered with DoorDash to offer same-day delivery to shoppers’ homes.The company said its so-called core sales — which consists of revenue from Bed Bath & Beyond, Buybuy Baby, Harmon Face Values and Decorist — rose 73% year over year. At Bed Bath & Beyond, growth in bedding, bath, kitchen food prep and indoor decor items outpaced other categories.Comparable sales — which track revenue online and at shops open for at least 12 months — were up 86% compared with 2020 levels, and up 3% on a two-year basis. Analysts had been looking for year-over-year growth of 75.6%, according to StreetAccount estimates.Comparable sales were adjusted to account for the negative impact of ongoing store closures. Stores that permanently closed in fiscal 2020 would have contributed roughly 13% to the retailer’s core sales during the fiscal first quarter, the company said in its news release. As of May 29, the retailer operated a total of 1,004 stores, including 818 of its namesake Bed Bath & Beyond locations.So far, a key component to Bed Bath & Beyond’s turnaround plans are ahead of schedule. It’s in the process of debuting a variety of in-house brands across the kitchen, bedding and organization categories.By 2023, the company says its private label sales will grow to represent 30% of its business, from about 10% at the end of last year. By selling more in-house products, Bed Bath & Beyond’s goal is to grow margins. This is one way the company can hopefully offset some of the hefty expenses it incurs as it invests in things like refreshing stores. The retailer expects to remodel as many as 150 locations in North America this fiscal year.During its fiscal first quarter, Bed Bath & Beyond launched the bedding and bath label Nestwell, a spa-inspired line Haven, and an everyday basics line called Simply Essential. It has a number of other labels on the way.It has also been ramping up marketing in a bid to make itself known as a destination for all-things home. A national TV and social media campaign called “Home, Happier” recently debuted.”We have started the year in a position of strength and are clearly on track to accomplish our goals,” Tritton said.Bed Bath & Beyond raised its full-year revenue outlook to a range of $8.2 billion to $8.4 billion, up from a prior estimate of $8 billion to $8.2 billion. Fiscal 2021 earnings are expected to be between $1.40 and $1.55 per share, on an adjusted basis. Analysts had been looking for full-year adjusted earnings of $1.47 a share on revenue of $8.15 billion.For the second quarter, Bed Bath & Beyond said it expects to earn between 48 cents and 55 cents per share after adjustments. Sales will be between $2.04 billion and $2.08 billion.Analysts had been looking for second-quarter adjusted earnings of 52 cents per share on sales of $2.02 billion, according to Refinitiv data.Bed Bath & Beyond, meantime, is the latest retailer to sweeten benefits for workers. The company is providing as much as eight weeks of paid leave to parents after the birth, adoption or fostering of a new child. Many businesses have been investing in better wages and benefits as a way to attract employees in a tight labor market.Find the full earnings release from Bed Bath & Beyond here. More

The entrance to Au Bon Pain at the MBK Center.Jeff Greenberg | Universal Images Group | Getty ImagesThe franchisee has now become the franchisor.Ampex Brands, which operates more than 400 Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell, Long John Silver’s and 7-Eleven locations in the U.S., announced Wednesday that it bought the bakery-cafe chain Au Bon Pain.”Our [quick-service restaurant] brands performed extraordinarily well throughout the pandemic as guests moved to drive-thru,” Ampex CEO Tabbassum Mumtaz said in a statement. “That performance allowed us to diversify and jump on a great opportunity to reposition a legacy brand. The bakery café category will rebound, and Au Bon Pain is well-positioned to grow.”The acquisition was finalized on Tuesday. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Ampex gains control of Au Bon Pain’s 171 locations, which will increase the company’s revenue by about 10% annually. It has also received franchising rights for an additional 131 restaurants.As Ampex looks to revive Au Bon Pain’s business and expand its footprint, it has hired a number of experienced restaurant executives to lead the transformation. Ericka Garza, the new brand president, most recently served as senior franchise growth leader for Yum Brands’ Pizza Hut.Ampex bought the bakery-cafe chain from ABP Corp., which is a subsidiary of Panera Bread. The sandwich chain bought Au Bon Pain in 2017, shortly after JAB Holding took Panera private. The deal was a reunion for the two. Restaurant entrepreneur Ron Schaich merged his cookie store with Au Bon Pain in the 1980s and then bought the Saint Louis Bread Company — now known as Panera Bread — the following decade. He sold off Au Bon Pain shortly before the new millennium.Under JAB’s ownership, many Au Bon Pain locations were converted into Panera restaurants, shrinking its footprint from roughly 300 locations to 171.JAB is spinning off other parts of its portfolio as well. Doughnut maker Krispy Kreme has filed to go public again, seeking to raise as much as $640 million through an initial public offering. JAB took the company private in 2016. New York Times’ Dealbook recently reported that JAB completed an $800 million refinancing deal for Panera Bread recently, clearing the way for the sandwich chain to return to the public market. More

An aerial view of the company’s planned factory near Long Beach Airport in California.Relativity Space3D-printing specialist Relativity Space is adding a second factory in Long Beach, California on the site of a former Boeing facility, where the company will move its headquarters and focus work on building fully reusable rockets.”This is really going to let us continue to expand our ambitions, and of course, go build and develop and fly Terran R,” Relativity CEO Tim Ellis told CNBC.The company, which raised nearly $1.2 billion in capital over the past eight months, expects to begin construction on the new facility this summer and the move in come January 2022. At more than 1 million square feet, the former Boeing C-17 aircraft manufacturing plant “is an absolutely monstrous building,” Ellis said.”As historically an aerospace facility it means there are no columns in the middle of the factory at all, like a freely supported ceiling. It has giant bridge cranes that can lift heavy things, so it already comes outfitted with a lot of the pieces that make it a really fantastic aerospace factory,” Ellis said.”It has the scale for us to continue to grow in the next couple of years but also the next decades to come,” he added.The new building adds to Relativity’s 120,000 square foot current headquarters that it also built in Long Beach and moved into last year. The new HQ will have room for more than 2,000 employees, a metals laboratory, a machine shop, “dozens” of the company’s 3D-printer bays and a mission control center.A closer look at a rendering of the company’s new factory near Long Beach Airport in California.Relativity SpaceThe company is focused on using 3D-printing to build rockets, a process that Relativity says requires thousands less parts and can be done in less than 60 days due to a simplified supply chain.Relativity is already starting to build some early parts of its Terran R rocket, and could build the whole rocket in its existing location. But the larger building will have “over 100 times more capacity” to print than Relativity’s current building, Ellis said, and enough floor space to build “too many” rockets per year.The new building has more space than Relativity needs to produce Terran R, but Ellis said that’s the only hint he can give for the company’s “other plans” for the facility. Terran 1 on trackAn artist’s rendition of Relativity’s Terran 1 rocket on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral’s LC-16 in Florida.RelativityRelativity is developing two rockets, Terran 1 and Terran R, with the former a one-time use vehicle that competes with the mid-sized rockets of companies like ABL Space or Firefly Aerospace and the latter a fully reusable vehicle that would compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets. Ellis said his company is now “assembling the first stage of the actual orbital flight rocket” for the first Terran 1 launch later this year.”We’re entering the final engine qualification campaign right now for Terran 1,” Ellis said. “The Terran 1 launch site [in Florida] is also nearing completion … so a bunch of things are remaining on track internally for a launch at the end of this year.”The company’s existing headquarters will continue to be used to produce Terran 1 rockets. Relativity now has more than 400 employees, and expects to add more than 200 more by the end of this year.A timelapse from inside of a 3D-printing bay shows the manufacturing process for a Terran 1 second stage flight tank:Relativity SpaceWhile Relativity’s rapid expansion and fundraising has seen it become one of the space industry most valuable private companies, with a $4.2 billion valuation, Ellis emphasized that those milestones are secondary to the goal of launching its first rocket later this year.”At the end of the day, launching to orbit is what the business is all about. Of course, these are all great signals and momentum to get there but infrastructure alone isn’t winning, but it’s a huge enabler,” Ellis said.Become a smarter investor with CNBC Pro.Get stock picks, analyst calls, exclusive interviews and access to CNBC TV. Sign up to start a free trial today. More

Watching a live broadcast of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annual televised phone-in, at the newsroom of the TASS news agency.Gavriil Grigorov | TASS | Getty ImagesRussian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that he had received the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, as the Kremlin struggles to convince a skeptical public about the benefits of inoculation.”I thought that I needed to be protected as long as possible. So I chose to be vaccinated with Sputnik V. The military is getting vaccinated with Sputnik V, and after all I’m the commander-in-chief,” Putin said during his annual phone-in session where the public submit questions to the president.”After the first shot, I didn’t feel anything at all. About four hours later, there was some tenderness where I had the shot. I did the second [shot] at midday. At midnight, I measured my temperature. It was 37.2 [Celsius]. I went to sleep, woke up and my temperature was 36.6. That was it,” Putin said in comments translated by Reuters.Putin had previously refused to say which Covid vaccine he received in March and the Kremlin said it would keep the information a “secret.” Putin was not filmed or photographed receiving the shot prompting speculation among the Russian public and international press that he didn’t receive a Russian vaccine at all.Doubts over Putin’s vaccine status have not helped to allay a seeming reluctance among Russians to get a Covid vaccination, despite incentives for older people to get the shot.Russia has authorized four home-grown vaccines for use now and was the first country in the world to approve a coronavirus shot, Sputnik V (its most well-known vaccine) last August.The fact that the vaccine was approved before clinical trials were completed raised eyebrows among the global scientific community and that’s believed to have contributed to skepticism among the public over the vaccine’s safety credentials and efficacy.Still, interim analysis of phase 3 clinical trials of the shot, involving 20,000 participants and published in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet in early February, found that it was 91.6% effective against symptomatic Covid-19 infection. Russia has sought to sell its vaccine to multiple countries around the world, particularly its allies.Nonetheless, vaccination rates at home remain sluggish much to the chagrin of Putin, who has extolled the benefits of Russia’s Covid vaccines and encouraged the public to take up the shots. Its vaccination rate lags many countries, including that of India, Mexico and Brazil.Our World in Data figures suggest that 12% of Russia’s population has received two doses of a vaccine, while 3% has received a first dose.Putin’s comments come as Russia struggles to contain Covid and the delta variant surges in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Last Friday, Russia’s coronavirus task force reported 20,393 new Covid cases, the most confirmed in a single day since Jan. 24, according to Reuters. The figures included 7,916 new infections in Moscow. Russia has recorded almost 5.5 million cases since the start of the pandemic.Speaking to various members of the public from across Russia during the question-and-answer session, Putin covered a variety of topics, including rising food prices, energy infrastructure, relations with Ukraine and housing issues. Over 1 million questions were submitted to Putin, news agency TASS reported.On the matter of compulsory vaccination of the public given the low immunization rate, Putin reiterated on Wednesday that he still didn’t agree with it, although there have been moves to push Russians into accepting the shot with the prospect of restrictions and possible job losses for those that don’t accept it.In Moscow, for example, officials have said that 60% of service sector workers must get a first dose of a Covid vaccine before July 15. More

A worker stocks shelves of back-to-school supplies at a Target store on August 03, 2020 in Colma, California.Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesParents are preparing to pay up this back-to-school season, as prices on items from clothing to notebooks are on the rise, according to new survey data.The average parent’s spending per student is expected to be as much as $270, compared with roughly $250 in 2020, KPMG found when it surveyed more than 1,000 adult consumers across the United States in May.Parents of children in preschool are planning to spend as much as 32% more this year, the survey said, while parents of college-aged students will spend about 13% more. The sharp increases in these two groups are partially due to more people entering both preschool and college this fall, after putting those plans on hold a year ago.But a key reason for the heightened spending is the growing expectation that items will cost more in the coming months, KMPG’s economists said. A combination of supply shocks to U.S. manufacturing suppliers and abruptly heightened consumer demand for goods, including school supplies, has created the perfect storm for this scenario to play out, KPMG said.Among the survey respondents who said they planned to spend more money on their kids this year, 39% believe sticker prices are going up, with inflation on the rise.Consumer prices in May accelerated at the fastest pace in nearly 13 years, a sign of how much inflationary pressure is building in the U.S. economy. Apparel prices rose 1.2% from April. Footwear prices jumped 1.4%. The cost of educational books and supplies rose 0.7% month over month, according to the latest data from the Labor Department.Demand is also higher than it was a year ago, which means retailers are discounting a lot less, said Scott Rankin, strategy lead of KPMG’s consumer and retail division in the U.S.”There are fewer promotions and coupon offers, so the price realization has gone up pretty significantly across a lot of retail categories,” Rankin said. “We haven’t quite yet seen the full-court press from the office supply stores and some of the mass merchandisers and the big e-commerce players … but I do think we are going to see less promotionally around [school] supplies.”As more students head back to classrooms, a greater proportion of spending this back-to-school season will be devoted to items necessary for in-person learning. Categories including shoes, clothing and core school supplies such as notebooks will see the largest increases in share of a parent’s budget compared with 2020, KPMG said.Consumers are anticipating spending less on electronics and office furniture — two categories that reaped the benefit of stay-at-home trends for much of last year.For many parents, heading to a store like Office Depot or Target with their kids is a memorable back-to-school tradition.And with Covid restrictions increasingly lifted, more people — 57% of those polled — expect to browse the aisles in person, compared with 44% planning to shop online, the survey found. E-commerce spending has jumped significantly from 2019 levels, when just 34% of respondents said they would buy items like loose-leaf paper and backpacks on the web.When asked when they would be starting their back-to-school and back-to-college shopping this year, 33% of U.S. consumers said July, followed by 30% saying August, KPMG found. Ten percent of people said they’ve already started shopping for the upcoming school year.For many families, the theme this back-to-school season will be “spend money and look great,” Rankin said. “Go out and get your Air Jordan 1s … If you can find them.” More