Business

Airlines are offering new options and old favorites to woo returning travelers.
In-flight food can be a creature comfort and can go a long way toward winning over passengers who are willing to pay for premium seats.
Airlines have struggled to staff in a tight labor market, as have airport catering kitchens and other suppliers.

Courtesy: Singapore Airlines

The aromas of airplane food are once again wafting through cabins at 35,000 feet.
From vegan meatballs to ice cream sundaes, airlines are offering new options and old favorites to woo returning travelers. As the peak travel season fades and inflation weighs on household and company budgets, it’s even more important than usual for airlines to court passengers.

Airplane food, a favorite travel punchline for comedians, is hardly the top reason why travelers choose a carrier — price and schedule are much stronger factors. But it can be a creature comfort on board and can go a long way toward winning over passengers, especially those who are willing to pay up for premium seats, analysts say.
“Food is one of the most tangible signals of what an airline thinks of its customers,” said Henry Harteveldt, founder of travel consulting firm Atmosphere Research Group and a former airline executive.
The start of the Covid-19 pandemic halted almost all food and beverage service on flights as travel collapsed and airlines limited crews’ contact with passengers to avoid spreading the virus. The pandemic drove airlines to record losses and had them looking to cut costs wherever possible, such as in-flight food.
With travel returning, airlines around the world are rolling out new menu options. Alcohol sales, with some new ready-to-drink options, are back on board in U.S. coach cabins. And face masks are now mostly optional, removing an obstacle to onboard food and beverage service.
As tastes change and airlines face supply chain challenges, the meal on your seat-back tray table is making a comeback — with some adjustments.

Chasing high-paying travelers

Better in-flight menus can boost a carrier’s image and help it bring more high-paying travelers on board. First- and business-class customers are becoming even more of a prize as airlines try to recover from the pandemic’s financial impact.
Because of “the incentive to win those premium class passengers, the incentive to spend more money [on food] is high,” said Steve Walsh, partner at management consulting firm Oliver Wyman in its transportation and services practice.
Still, food and beverage costs make up just about 3% of a full-service airline’s expenses, he estimated.

Courtesy: Singapore Airlines | American Airlines

While food is for sale in many domestic coach cabins and is generally complimentary on long-haul international flights, many of the new offerings target those in premium classes, where there are fewer passengers and service is more elaborate.
A plethora of videos have been posted online by airline passengers reviewing meals, plating and service in detail. Popular staples such as Biscoff cookies and Stroopwaffel treats garner loyal followings and come to be expected by many travelers. Missteps on the menu or service are amplified on social media by disappointed travelers.
One offering: Delta is serving passengers on long-haul international flights a new sundae-in-a-cup premixed with chocolate, cherries and spiced Belgian cookies called speculoos, which are known in North America as Biscoff cookies.
“Obviously it is an homage to the Biscoff,” said Mike Henny, Deltas’ managing director of onboard services operations.
In more premium cabins, such as Delta One on international flights, passengers can build their own sundaes with a choice of toppings, including Morello cherry compote, chocolate sauce and speculoos cookie crumbles.

Ice cream on Delta Air Lines
Source: Delta Air Lines

Delta in July said the revenue recovery in premium products and its extra-legroom seats was outpacing sales from standard coach — further motivation to introduce new and exciting food items.
Last week, the airline said it is teaming up with James Beard Award winner Mashama Bailey, executive chef of Savannah, Georgia-based restaurant The Grey, for “Southern-inspired” meals on flights out of Atlanta for domestic first-class passengers. Travelers on Delta One flying internationally out of the hub can also preorder menu items curated by Bailey.
Airlines for years have teamed up with celebrity chefs to design their menus and lately have been working more with local businesses. In February, American Airlines brought Tamara Turner’s Silver Spoon Desserts’ Bundt cakes on board domestic premium cabins.

Veggie and vegan

Even before the pandemic, airlines were expanding options for travelers who prefer vegetarian and vegan meals. Now, those types of alternative dishes are getting an even closer look.
“Pasta isn’t always the solution,” said Delta’s Henny.
Singapore Airlines, a carrier that operates some of the world’s longest flights, brought in Southern California-based luxury spa Golden Door to develop dozens of recipes for its in-flight menu. Golden Door’s executive chef, Greg Frey Jr., focuses on vegetable-forward dishes that he says are among the best for digestion on flights.
“I think people are, rightly so, concerned they’re not going to feel as satiated with this vegetarian meal and [think] ‘I just need this piece of meat.’ And in the end … you really don’t need that much protein when you’re sitting in an airplane and relaxing,” he said. “It’s not like you’re heavy lifting.”

An hour later, you’re not going, ‘Ugh, I wish I didn’t have the meatballs.'”

Greg Frey Jr.
executive chef at Golden Door

Frey developed a Portobello mushroom “meat ball” dish that’s served with a dairy-free risotto made with vegetable broth. The mushroom balls are steamed and served with an heirloom tomato sauce: “There’s not a lick of meat in there,” he said.
“It’s so satisfying and you get all those umami flavors,” he said. “The best part is an hour later, you’re not going, ‘Ugh, I wish I didn’t have the meatballs.'”

Supply chain puzzle

Greens and salads are among the most difficult dishes to serve on board. 
Airline chefs have to make sure ingredients are hardy enough to endure transportation and refrigeration, making stronger greens such as kale a better option than some more delicate varieties.
“We have to be very choosy about what type of greens we offer,” said American Airlines spokeswoman Leah Rubertino. “Arugula, for example, is not our friend.”
The airline is offering salads on more flights compared with before the pandemic, Rubertino said.
The airline is also now offering a “fiesta grain bowl” with rice, quinoa, black beans, cauliflower, corn and zucchini as a vegetarian option in many first-class cabins for domestic flights.
Airlines have been trying to source vegetables more locally, giving their catering companies fresher ingredients and cutting down on transportation time and costs. 
Singapore Airlines since 2019 has been using greens from AeroFarms, a vertical farm near Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. Spokesman James Boyd said the airline has plans to source from other vertical farms close to the major airports it serves in the coming years.

Vertical farm at Aerofarms in New Jersey
Leslie Josephs | CNBC

Once the ingredients are sourced, there’s the challenge of serving meals for thousands of passengers — made only more difficult by broad supply-chain and labor shortages and delicate ingredients.
Airlines have struggled to staff in a tight labor market, as have airport catering kitchens and other suppliers.
“There’s not a day that goes by where we don’t have issues with provisioning our aircraft with pillows, blankets, plastic cups, food,” American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said on a quarterly call in July.
Delta’s Henny said the carrier phased food back gradually to ease strains on service.
“We knew we couldn’t just flip a switch,” he said. “We had to be very creative at the height of the pandemic.”
As food service expands, airlines are encouraging travelers to order their meals ahead of time so the carriers know what to load on the plane, whether it’s a special meal for religious or other dietary restrictions or just their favorite dishes in first class.
Meanwhile, some flight attendants still have to make do with what’s on board.
Susannah Carr, a flight attendant at a major airline and a member of the Association of Flight Attendants union, told CNBC that if the crew doesn’t have a vegetarian meal on board for a premium-class passenger, “We might pull some additional salad and make them a bigger salad” and incorporate a cheese plate.
“We’ve definitely gotten good at ‘McGyvering,'” she said.

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NASA postponed its Artemis I launch again, after making a second attempt to get the mission off the ground.
The space agency is working toward the debut of its Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule, for what would be a more than month-long journey around the moon.
A hydrogen leak in the rocket’s engine section led to Saturday’s postponement.

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard is seen atop the mobile launcher at Launch 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Aug. 26, 2022.
Steve Seipel | NASA

NASA postponed its Artemis I moon mission again on Saturday, after making a second attempt to get the uncrewed launch off the ground.
The space agency is working toward the debut of its Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule, for what would be a more than month-long journey around the moon, but is now facing a delay of at least several weeks.

As NASA was filling the rocket on Saturday morning, the agency’s team detected a hydrogen fuel leak from the engine section. NASA made several attempts to fix the leak, but time ticked away ahead of the launch window that was set to open at 2:17 p.m. ET.
NASA called off a first launch attempt on Monday after it was unable to resolve a temperature problem identified with one of the rocket’s four liquid-fueled engines, discovered with less than two hours to go in the countdown.
NASA said later Saturday it would not attempt another launch during the current period, which ends Tuesday. The agency said it will need to roll the 32-story tall rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida before another attempt.
The next available launch periods begin Sept. 19 and Oct. 17 and last about two weeks each.
The uncrewed launch is set to mark the debut of the most powerful rocket ever assembled, and kicks off NASA’s long-awaited return to the moon’s surface. It’s the first mission in NASA’s Artemis lunar program, which is tentatively planned to land the agency’s astronauts on the moon by its third mission in 2025.

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The first episode of Amazon’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” streaming series attracted over 25 million global viewers in its first day
Amazon says it’s the biggest ever debut for any show on its Prime Video streaming service. 

Amazon Studios shared its first image of its upcoming untitled “Lord of the Rings” series, due on its streaming service Sept. 2, 2022.
Amazon Studios

Amazon said Saturday that the first episode of its “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” series attracted over 25 million viewers globally in its first day, making it the biggest ever debut for a show on its Prime Video streaming service. 
The series is based on the appendices of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” books and is the most expensive television series of all time.

“It is somehow fitting that Tolkien’s stories – among the most popular of all time, and what many consider to be the true origin of the fantasy genre – have led us to this proud moment,” Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke said in a statement. 
At the show’s U.K. premiere, Amazon founder billionaire Jeff Bezos hinted at how precious the series is to fans, saying one of his sons had told him “don’t eff this up” when he learned of Amazon’s acquisition of the story rights.
Episodes of the show will continue to debut weekly on Amazon Prime.
Earlier this month, HBO said its “House of the Dragon,” a “Game of Thrones” prequel series, was the biggest series premiere in its history.
Clarification: This story was updated to reflect that “The Rings of Power” is based on the appendices to “The Lord of the Rings.”

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Digital World Acquisition Group is urging shareholders to delay the merger with Trump Media and Technology Group.
A shareholder meeting regarding the deal is set for Tuesday, while the current deadline to complete the merger is Thursday.
DWAC has warned that a failure to extend the merger deadline could result in liquidation.

Homepage and app announcement of “Truth Social.”
Christoph Dernbach | picture alliance | Getty Images

Digital World Acquisition Corp., the special purpose acquisition company planning to take former President Donald Trump’s media firm public, scheduled a shareholder meeting Tuesday as it seeks to extend the deadline for the merger for as much as a year.
Trump Media and Technology Group and the SPAC have faced increasing scrutiny in recent months. A federal probe was launched into possible securities violations over the deal. Fox Business reported that Truth Social was in financial trouble and had failed to pay a vendor over $1 million in contractually obligated payments, an allegation which the company denied.

DWAC itself warned shareholders that a decline in the ex-president’s popularity could hurt the deal. Indeed, the vote comes amid a Justice Department criminal probe into whether Trump illegally removed thousands of White House documents, including those marked “Top Secret” and “Classified,” to his Mar-a-Lago private home after he left the presidency.
Truth Social has faced its own scrutiny. The app was barred from the Google Play store for violating the store’s policies regarding the moderation of user-generated content. The platform remains accessible online and on the Apple App Store.
DWAC and Trump Media face a Thursday deadline to complete the merger, and the SPAC is eagerly seeking an extension.
DWAC needs 65% of shareholders to approve the delay. Patrick Orlando, DWAC’s CEO, has issued a barrage of pleas to shareholders through various channels, including Truth Social, urging them to approve the extension. Non-votes are essentially counted as “no” votes.
Some of the SPACs institutional investors, including Lighthouse Investment Partners and Pentwater Capital Management, didn’t comment on the upcoming vote when reached by CNBC. Citadel Investment Group said the company is holding stock as a “market maker,” not as a voting shareholder.

DWAC has warned previously that a “no” result could force DWAC into liquidation. The SPAC does, however, have built-in extensions of up to six months that can be initiated by sponsors adding money to the trust.
Orlando’s company, ARC Global Investments, holds 20% of these votes itself, he disclosed in an interview last Thursday with IPO Edge. Still, he said, “the retail shareholder holds a lot of weight.”
Trump Media and Technology Group and Truth Social were founded after Trump was banned from Twitter following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. On that day, his supporters stormed the building in an attempt to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump Media announced in October 2021 that it would merge with DWAC to take the company public. Trump Media, headed by Republican former U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes, has said it also plans on launching TMTG News and TMTG+ video streaming services.
The high-profile nature of the merger has brought in more retail investors than SPACs normally attract. The SPACs institutional investors largely did not respond to a request for comment.
For investors, DWAC’s liquidation would pay out around $10 per share. Shares of the so-called blank check company have traded around $25 of late. This is far from its 2022 peak of about $97 in March. Weak turnout in the shareholder vote could squash the deal.
“Let’s #rocktheproxy,” the Florida-based Orlando said in one of his many Truth Social posts during the voting period. “Shooting for huge engagement and voter participation!!!!”
When questioned about probes into the DWAC-Trump Media deal, Orlando said that DWAC was “aware of many targets” prior to the offering, and that the company was complying with all probe requests.
“If there’s an inquiry, we respond to the inquiry. If there’s a procedure that we have to go through, we go through that procedure,” Orlando said in the IPO Edge interview.
The DWAC CEO also said Trump remained the chairman of Trump Media, countering reports that he left the board just weeks before the company was subpoenaed. Orlando reiterated the potential risks brought about by Trump’s volatile public popularity.
“There’s a risk factor. We need to let people know these are things you should think about,” Orlando told IPO Edge. “If certain events occur that are negative, they will negatively impact a stock.”
The results of the shareholder vote are expected to be announced Tuesday, barring a decision by the company to adjourn the meeting.
– CNBC’s Yun Li contributed to this report.

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French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told CNBC on Saturday that the G-7’s proposed price cap on Russian oil would require wider international participation to be a success.
Aside from cutting a key revenue stream of President Vladimir Putin’s war chest, Le Maire said the policy should be seen as a “global measure against war.”
“You need an outreach, because we don’t want this measure to be only a Western measure,” Le Maire said.

France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire speaks on July 25, 2022 at the Finance ministry in Berlin, Germany.
David Gannon | Afp | Getty Images

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Saturday that efforts by G-7 nations to introduce a price cap on Russian oil would require commitment from the wider international community to be successful.
The G-7 economic powers announced Friday that they had agreed on a plan to impose a set price on Russian oil.

The initiative is the latest attempt to apply economic pressure on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. But aside from cutting Russia’s oil revenues — a key source of funding for President Vladimir Putin’s war chest — Le Maire said the policy should be implemented as a “global measure against war.”
“You need an outreach because we don’t want this measure to be only a Western measure,” Le Maire told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick at the Ambrosetti Forum in Italy.
“It should not be a Western measure against Russia, it should be a global measure against war,” he added.
The G-7 — which consists of the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, the U.K., Italy and Japan — is yet to finalize how the price cap will be implemented, a process that Le Maire acknowledged will be “quite difficult.”
However, it is expected to be ready before early December when EU sanctions on seaborne imports of Russian crude kick in.

“We know that we need the unity from all the 27 member states if you want to get the green light for introducing that cap,” he said, referring to the EU bloc of nations, a non-enumerated member of the G-7.
More than that, however, Le Maire said the policy would require participation by other major global economies.
It follows comments from Kadri Simson, the EU’s energy chief, who urged involvement from China and India, both of which have increased their purchases of Russian oil this year, benefiting from discounted rates.
“If we want to be efficient in these sanctions, we need to reduce the revenues that Russia is gaining from oil and gas selling,” Le Maire said.

Europe a ‘third global superpower’

Russia has previously said it will not sell oil to nations that impose a price limit. And following the G-7’s announcement on Friday, Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom said it would not restart gas flows via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline due to technical issues.
It came after gas supplies were already halted last week for a planned “maintenance outage” that was expected to last until Sept. 3.
Paolo Gentiloni, the EU’s economics commissioner, said Saturday that the bloc was “ready to react” to Russia’s decision to stop gas supplies to the region.
France’s Le Maire said separately that Europe’s steadfast opposition to Russia, namely via economic sanctions and international diplomacy, was evidence of the region’s rising status as a “third global superpower.”
“Things are radically changing. Europe is becoming a superpower, not only from an economic point of view but also a political point of view,” Le Maire said.
“I really think that we are moving on the right direction to have Europe playing a part in the 21st century between China and the United States,” he added.

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In 2017, after I graduated from college, I started working as an engineer at an oil company. I was 23 and making $98,500 a year.
At first, I thought I had my dream job. But after seeing senior leaders work 60-hour weeks with routine travel, I realized that it wasn’t the lifestyle I wanted. My father passed away when I was three years old, so having family time was always very valuable to me.

Josh works less than four days a week and spends his much of his free time with his family.
Photo: Danny Mizicko for CNBC Make It

In 2018, I started experimenting with side hustles. I set a goal to make $3,450 a month (after taxes) from my hustles in order to support my lifestyle. As soon as I’d achieved that, I decided, I would quit my full-time job.
Today, I’ve accomplished my goal of being my own boss, and more. I left my engineering job in February 2021 to work on my side hustles full-time.
Last year, I made a little over $189,000 from my seven income streams:

YouTube (Google AdSense): $82,349
Fulfilled by Amazon: $13,886
Patreon (coaching): $33,114
Fiverr (product research): $29,014
Affiliate marketing: $29,496
Rental property: $1,272
Taxable dividends: $639

Now I work just 22 hours a week. I take off Thursdays, Friday afternoons, and weekends. Whether it’s golfing with my grandpa, cooking family dinners or starting new business projects in my community, I have plenty of time to invest in the people and things that I care about most. 
Here’s my best advice for turning your side hustle into your full-time gig, all while working less hours:

1. Don’t be afraid of trial and error.

With my early side hustles, I tried acquiring rental properties, then started placing ads in the backseat of Ubers and renting out my three-wheeled Polaris Slingshot motorcycle on Turo, an online car-sharing platform.
But none of those businesses were successful. It wasn’t until I began selling products on Amazon, using the Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) service, that I started making real passive income.
All I had to do was find a generic product that was in demand and ship it to Amazon. My first product was $1,000 worth of headphones, then I moved to iPhone cases and sports equipment.
I grossed more than $25,000 in 2019 through my Amazon store. I wanted to share with others what I learned from my trial and errors, so I started a new project, which would later turn into my biggest income stream: starting my own YouTube channel.

2. Build a community around your expertise.

I launched my YouTube channel, Debt To Dollars, in February 2020. I committed to posting at least two videos per week at first. Over the next eight months, I gained 14,000 subscribers and 871,000 channel views.

Josh’s most lucrative income stream in 2021 was his YouTube account, where he made almost $83,000 from advertisements.
Danny Mizicko for CNBC Make It

While growing my audience, I realized that I wanted to connect more with my subscribers and build a real community. So in October 2020, I began mentoring students one-on-one for $50 a month on how to make money selling products on Amazon.
I currently use Patreon, a platform that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service, to host my coaching sessions.
In February 2021, I started my product research service on Fiverr, in which customers would pay me to find high-demand, low-competition products — trending toys, pet supplies or travel accessories — that they could sell on Amazon.
These community-based businesses helped me reach my long-awaited income goal of $3,450 per month.

3. Prioritize tackling debt.

I was able to quit my full-time job when I was making less than $4,000 per month because I had paid off all of my debts, except for my house and car.
There are plenty of methods you can use to pay down debt, but I personally like the “Debt Snowball” method because it helps you see your progress.
Here’s how it works:

List all of your debts from smallest to biggest.
Make the biggest payment on your smallest debt and the minimum payment on the rest.
Repeat until you pay off the smallest debt, then continue on with your next smallest debt.

4. Set up the legal side of your business early.

It’s important to incorporate your business with your state for practical reasons, like asset protection and tax advantages. But I also believe there’s a psychological benefit.
I attribute some of my past failures to treating my side hustles like hobbies instead of businesses. Once I formed a Limited Liability Company (LLC) in Texas in 2019, I took everything more seriously and professionally. It’s not a coincidence that all of my businesses failed until then.
An LLC has some of the best features of a corporation or partnership, two other business structures that are also used by companies in the U.S. LLCs protect their owners from being held personally responsible for the business’ debts or liability, like a corporation.
But like a partnership, LLCs income “pass through” the business and are taxed the owner’s personal income, which makes filing taxes simpler.
You can form your own LLC by filing a certificate of organization in your state, which normally costs anywhere from $50 to $300. Many states list filing information on their Secretary of State website.

5. Find a schedule that works for you and stick with it.

When I was working my full-time job, I lacked motivation to work on my side hustles.
But once I put pen to paper and committed to a schedule, working on my business was part of my weekly routine. I chose to focus on my side hustles each weekday evening after work and every Saturday morning.
I still stick with a weekly schedule. I work Monday through Wednesday and a half day on Friday. Each day I’ll work four to six hours, with each hour blocked for a specific task.

One of the benefits of setting his own schedule is getting to play golf with his grandfather on Thursday mornings.
Photo: Danny Mizicko for CNBC Make It

If you don’t set aside specific times to work on your side hustle, your business may get lost in daily priorities.

6. Set up systems that will save you time in the future.

I invest in business models that require as little of my time as possible. It is the only way I am able to work 22 hours per week and still grow multiple income streams. But remember that automating things, and creating the most effective systems, can take time at first.
Every month, I reflect on where I spent most of my work hours and find ways to make those processes more efficient. For example, I used to spend four to eight hours per week editing videos.
I decided to outsource my video editing, but that also required some time up front to run the numbers to see where it fit into my budget, and find a great editor to do the work. But now that I already put time into doing that, I spend those hours growing my business in other ways, or working less.

7. Identify what makes you different.

Marketing is more than just advertising your product or service; it’s separating yourself from your competition by making your customer feel something. They’ll come back or, even better, tell their friends about you.
When I first started selling on Amazon in 2018, I used stock photos my supplier gave me for my product listings. Unsurprisingly, they blended in with every other product. And if someone did buy, they got their product in a boring, clear bag. There was nothing that made my customer experience special.
Once I learned the importance of providing something special, I started to take my own product photos, and I designed custom packaging. My sales spiked.
No matter what your business is, decide what makes you memorable and invest in it.
Josh Ellwood is the founder of Debt To Dollars. Follow him on Instagram and YouTube.
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The U.S. authorized the first reformulation of Covid booster shots this week.
The new doses target the dominant omicron subvariants as well as the original Covid strain that emerged in China in 2019.
Top health officials believe the shots will provide more durable protection heading into the fall, but acknowledge it’s not yet clear how effective they will be.

A woman receives a Pfizer vaccination booster shot at Eugene A. Obregon Park in Los Angeles.
Gary Coronado | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

The U.S. authorized the first major makeover of the Covid-19 vaccines this week in an effort to stem an expected tide of infections and hospitalizations this fall.
But it’s unclear how much protection the new booster shots will provide. The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cleared the shots without any data from clinical trials that are testing the reformulated doses in humans.

The new boosters, authorized for people ages 12 and older, target the highly contagious and immune-evasive omicron BA.5 subvariant that has caused a wave of breakthrough infections over the summer. The shots also target the original strain of the virus that first emerged in Wuhan, China, in 2019.
The nation’s top health officials acted with urgency this summer to ensure the new boosters would roll out in time for the fall. They are worried that the waning effectiveness of the old vaccines is creating an opening for omicron to cause another wave of hospitalizations this winter as people spend more time indoors where the airborne virus spreads more easily.
Deaths and hospitalizations have climbed since April among the elderly, the most vaccinated age group in America, as omicron has continued to mutate into more and more transmissible subvariants that dodge the protection of the original vaccines, according to Heather Scobie, a CDC epidemiologist.
Dr. Peter Marks, who heads the FDA office that reviews vaccines, said the new boosters aim to restore the high levels of protection that vaccines demonstrated in early 2021. But Marks acknowledged that the federal government’s experts simply do not know yet whether the boosters will meet the high bar set by those doses.
“We don’t know for a fact yet whether we will get to that same level, but that is the goal here. And that is what we believe the evidence that we’ve seen helps point to,” Marks told reporters during a news conference after the FDA authorization Wednesday.

The FDA will conduct surveillance to see whether the boosters meet that goal, Marks said. When Pfizer’s and Moderna’s shots were authorized in December 2020, they provided more than 90% protection at preventing Covid.
Marks told reporters it will likely take at least another couple of months before human data on the BA.5 boosters is available to the public. But he said the FDA used basically the same process to authorize the new boosters that it has relied on for years to switch the virus strains in flu shots.
“We’re pretty confident that what we have is very similar to the situation that we’ve done in the past with influenza changes where we don’t do clinical studies for them in the United States,” Marks said. “We know from the way the vaccine works, and from the data that we have, that we can predict how well the vaccine will be working.”
The new boosters could prevent 2.4 million infections, 137,000 hospitalizations and 9,700 deaths if a new variant doesn’t emerge, according to a projection by a team of scientists that forecasts the trajectory of the pandemic, called the Covid-19 Scenario Modeling Hub.
But that projection is based on optimistic assumptions about booster coverage and efficacy, according to the scientists. The model assumes that the shots will prove 80% effective at preventing illness and the public will broadly embrace the new boosters. There is no efficacy data on the new shots and it’s unclear how strong public demand will be for them.
The CDC estimates that an early fall vaccination campaign with boosters could save the U.S. between $63 billion and $109 billion in medical costs by preventing hospitalizations and ICU admissions.
Pfizer and Moderna were originally developing new boosters to target the first version of omicron, BA.1, that caused the massive wave of infection and hospitalization last winter. But keeping up with the rapid evolution of the virus has proved challenging.
By the time the nation’s top health leaders moved in earnest in April to get new boosters ready, more transmissible subvariants had already driven omicron BA.1 out of prevalence. In June, the FDA asked the vaccine makers to switch gears and target omicron BA.5 after it rose to dominance.
This decision did not leave enough time for Pfizer and Moderna to complete human clinical trials on the new boosters before a fall vaccine rollout.
As a consequence, the FDA and the CDC are relying on human data from the clinical trials of the BA.1 shots to understand how the BA.5 boosters might perform. They also relied on data from studies in which the BA.5 boosters were tested in mice.
The CDC’s independent advisory committee backed the shots on Thursday in an overwhelming vote.
But several members of the panel also had reservations about the lack of human data.
“I really do struggle with a vaccine that has no clinical data that’s reported for humans, for those that would be actually receiving the vaccine,” said Dr. Oliver Brooks, a committee member and the chief medical officer at Watts HealthCare Corp. in Los Angeles.
Dr. Pablo Sanchez, the only CDC committee member who voted against the shots, called the decision to recommend the new boosters without human data premature.
“There’s a lot of vaccine hesitancy already — we need the human data,” said Sanchez, a professor of pediatrics at Ohio State University.
Dr. Doran Fink, deputy head of the FDA’s vaccine review division, told hesitant committee members that the new booster shots use the exact same manufacturing process as the old vaccines and contain the same total amount of mRNA, the code that instructs human cells to produce the proteins that provoke an immune response to defend against Covid.
Fink said the BA.1 and the BA.5 shots are similar enough to use data from the BA.1 human trials to get a good idea of how the new BA.5 boosters will perform.
Pfizer and Moderna presented data at the CDC meeting which showed that the BA.1 shots triggered a stronger immune response in humans than the old vaccines. The mouse studies from both companies on the BA.5 shots also showed a stronger immune response.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky last week said waiting longer for human data from the BA.5 shots could mean the boosters become outdated if a new variant emerges.
“There’s always a question here of being too slow versus too fast,” Walensky told “Conversations on Health Care” in a radio interview. “One of the challenges is if we wait for those data to emerge in human data … we will be using what I would consider to be a potentially outdated vaccine.”
Moderna completed enrollment in its clinical trials last week and expects results by the end of the year. Pfizer’s clinical trials are ongoing, though the company hasn’t provided a time frame on when it will have data.
Brooks questioned why the FDA decided to go with a BA.5 vaccine when clinical data is available for the BA.1 shots that the vaccine makers were originally developing. Canada and the United Kingdom have authorized new booster shots that target omicron BA.1
Fink said the U.S. selected BA.5 based on the advice of the FDA’s independent committee, data from South Africa that indicated natural infection from the subvariant provides broader protection than infection from BA.1, and the fact that BA.5 is dominant.
Though the committee members had some hesitation about proceeding without the human data, they agreed the new boosters should have a similar safety profile to the old vaccines because they use the same platform. The Covid vaccines have been administered to millions of people in the U.S. with mostly mild side effects.
The most common side effects from the human trials of the BA.1 shots was pain, redness, swelling at the injection site, fatigue, headaches, muscle pain, joint pain, chills, nausea, vomiting and fever, according to the FDA.
Dr. Sara Oliver, a CDC official, told the committee that the risk of myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle, after a BA.5 booster is unknown. But health officials anticipate it will be similar to the risk observed with the old vaccines.
Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines have been associated with an elevated risk of myocarditis in young men and adolescent boys mostly after the second dose. But the risk of myocarditis is higher from Covid infection than vaccination, according to the CDC.
Dr. Grace Lee, the CDC committee chair, sought to reassure the public that there’s a robust surveillance system to monitor safety, and that the panel will meet again if any new concerns emerge.
“I just want to make sure that the members of the public are aware that we’re continuing to monitor closely,” Lee said. “We have systems and teams that are continuing to monitor and to meet.”

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While audiences have returned to cinemas, and are spending more on premium tickets and popcorn, there are still lingering pandemic issues, including production delays.
Despite nearly 50% fewer film releases during the summer, the domestic box still tallied $3.34 billion in ticket sales, down nearly 21% from 2019 levels.
The 2023 box office is looking stronger as the calendar has significantly more titles, as well as a more diverse collection of genres and budgets.

Natalie Portman stars as the Mighty Thor, aka Dr. Jane Foster, alongside Chris Hemsworth, who plays Thor Odinson, in Marvel’s “Thor: Love and Thunder.”

The summer box office started with a bang, but as the season shifts into fall, ticket sales have fizzled.
Paramount and Skydance’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” alongside Disney and Marvel Studio’s “Doctor Strange in the Mulitverse of Madness,” reignited the movie theater business, driving million to theaters and racking up hundreds of million in ticket sales. The two films kicked off the summer movie season, which runs from May through August, and are the two top-grossing movies released domestically this year.

However, with only a handful of major releases during the summer season, ticket sales dwindled in late July and fell throughout August. In fact, the box office generated less than $100 million in each of the last five weeks of the summer period, according to data from Comscore.
“It definitely ended on a whimper,” said Shawn Robbins, chief media analyst at BoxOffice.com.
Big franchises including Universal’s “Jurassic World: Dominion,” “Minions: The Rise of Gru” and Disney’s “Thor: Love and Thunder” lifted the box office, but without smaller and mid-tier budgeted films to fill the gaps, the summer box office failed to capitalize on its momentum.

While audiences have returned to cinemas, and are spending more on premium tickets and popcorn, there are still lingering pandemic issues. Those issues include production shutdowns that delayed film shoots and pressure on visual effects houses to complete projects on shortened deadlines.
This means that the movie calendar, while filling back up, is far from running on all cylinders. Over the summer, just 22 films were launched in theaters, down 47.6% compared to 2019, Comscore data shows. And this is a trend that’s been seen all year long. From January to end of August in 2019, Hollywood released 75 films in cinemas. In 2022, so far, it’s only released 46.

There will be more month-to-month consistency next year, Robbins said.
Despite nearly 50% fewer film releases during this four-month period, the domestic box still tallied $3.34 billion in ticket sales, down just 21% from 2019 levels.

Tom Cruise in “Top Gun: Maverick”
Source: Paramount

“The results are impressive,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “Summer movies like ‘Top Gun: Maverick,’ ‘Doctor Strange 2,’ ‘Jurassic World: Dominion,’ and others, punched above their weight in May, June, and July, boosting not only sales, but confidence in the industry after moving in fits and starts over the course of 2020 and 2021.”

“However, a fall slowdown has given the industry a bit of a post-summer hangover with worries that only a handful of apparent blockbusters wait in the wings to bolster the fortunes of the third quarter box office,” he said.
As it stands, there are currently only four would-be blockbuster releases coming to theaters before the end of December, including Warner Bros.’ “Black Adam” in October, Disney’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and “Strange World” in November, and Disney’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” in December.
For comparison, in 2019, there were nearly two dozen blockbuster-style films slated on the calendar for the last four months of the year, including “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” “Jumanji: The Next Level” and “Frozen II.”
The domestic box office has generated around $5.3 billion since January, down around 31% compared to 2019, but remains on pace to deliver around $7.5 billion in total ticket sales by the end of the year, Dergarabedian said.
“That’s frankly a great outcome for an industry that saw 2020 levels at a mere $2.3 billion and a 2021 that wound up at $4.6 billion,” he said.
Next year looks stronger. Already the calendar has significantly more titles, as well as a more diverse collection of genres and budgets, including Marvel’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” “Dungeons & Dragons” and “John Wick 4.”
“2023 gets things rolling on a much better foot,” Robbins said.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.

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