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Scottish engineering firm Orbital Marine Power said Monday it secured £8 million ($9.64 million) in funding to “finance the ongoing operation” of its O2 tidal turbine, in another step forward for the fledgling tidal power sector.
The company describes the O2, which uses 10-meter blades and started grid-connected power generation last year, as “the world’s most powerful tidal turbine.”
Scotland has in recent years become a hub for companies and projects focused on tidal power and marine energy in general.

Orbital Marine Power’s O2 turbine at the Orkney Islands, north of the Scottish mainland, in September 2021. Scotland has become a hub for companies and projects focused on tidal power and marine energy in general.
William Edwards | AFP | Getty Images

Scottish engineering firm Orbital Marine Power said Monday it secured £8 million ($9.64 million) in funding to “finance the ongoing operation” of its O2 tidal turbine, in another step forward for the fledgling tidal power sector.
In an announcement, Orbital Marine Power said £4 million had come from the Scottish National Investment Bank, which was set up by the Scottish government in November 2020. The other £4 million comes from Abundance Investment, through more than 1,000 individual investors.

“These debt facilities will be serviced by the long-term sale of electricity from the turbine, forecast at around 100 gigawatt hours of clean predictable energy, delivered to the UK grid or hydrogen electrolysers over its project life,” Orbital said.
According to Orbital Marine Power, its 2-megawatt O2 weighs 680 metric tons and has a 74-meter hull structure. The company describes the O2, which uses 10-meter blades and started grid-connected power generation last year, as “the world’s most powerful tidal turbine.”
Mark Munro, executive director at the SNIB, said its investment in Orbital aligned with its “mission to support home-grown innovation and the just energy transition.”
“The company’s unique and scalable approach to tidal stream energy has an important role to play in the journey towards net zero,” Munro added.

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Scotland has had a long association with North Sea oil and gas production, but in recent years it’s also become a hub for companies and projects focused on tidal power and marine energy in general.

Orkney, an archipelago in waters north of mainland Scotland, is home to the European Marine Energy Centre. At EMEC, wave and tidal energy developers can test and assess their technology in the open sea. Orbital’s O2 turbine is at an EMEC site.
Last year, New York-listed TechnipFMC, which supplies technology to the energy sector, announced a strategic investment in Orbital Marine Power.

Europe’s energy transition

European installations of tidal and wave energy capacity jumped in 2021, as the ocean energy sector saw deployments revert to pre-pandemic levels and a substantial increase in investment.
In March, Ocean Energy Europe said 2.2 megawatts of tidal stream capacity was installed in Europe last year, compared with just 260 kilowatts in 2020. For wave energy, 681 kW was installed in Europe in 2021, which OEE said was a threefold increase on 2020.
Globally, 1.38 MW of wave energy came online in 2021, while 3.12 MW of tidal stream capacity was installed.
While there is excitement about the potential of marine energy, the overall size of tidal stream and wave projects remains very small compared with other renewables.
In 2021 alone, Europe installed 17.4 gigawatts of wind power capacity, according to figures from industry body WindEurope. More

The number of cities restricting local movement due to Covid more than doubled in a week to 11 as of Monday, up from five a week earlier, according to Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura.
Many of the new cases are in the region around Shanghai.
Last week, a small region called Si county in the neighboring province of Anhui ordered residents to stay in their homes, and leave only at designated times for virus testing.

Covid-related restrictions tightened in parts of China as local cases climbed, while lighter measures such as virus testing linger on in Shanghai, pictured here on July 3, 2022.
Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images

BEIJING — Just days after China relaxed some Covid controls, virus cases in different parts of the country have put new regions on alert.
The number of cities restricting local movement more than doubled in a week to 11 as of Monday, up from five a week earlier, according to Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura.

The latest measures affect regions that account for about 14.9% of China’s GDP, up from 10.1% a week earlier, Nomura said.
Mainland China’s daily Covid case count, including those without symptoms, has surged from a handful of cases to around 200 or 300 new cases in the last several days. Most are asymptomatic.
Many of the new cases are in the region around Shanghai. The nearby city of Wuxi in Jiangsu province said late Saturday that bars and gyms would need to close temporarily, while restaurants could only offer takeaway.
Last week, a far smaller region called Si county in the neighboring province of Anhui ordered residents to stay in their homes, and leave only at designated times for virus testing.

In June, Beijing and Shanghai tried to resume normal business activity after weeks of restrictions that had kept children out of schools and many restaurants essentially closed. The southeastern metropolis of Shanghai was by far hit the hardest and locked down for April and May.

Last week, mainland China cut the quarantine period for international travelers and close contacts of Covid cases. The country also changed a nationwide travel system that would theoretically make it easier to move within the country.
The daily Covid case count in Beijing and Shanghai has fallen to single digits or zero in the last several days.
“Markets could become a bit too complacent if they ignore the rebound of covid cases and underestimate the costs of persistent covid containment measures,” Nomura’s Lu said in a report Monday.

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In addition to new cases on the mainland in economic powerhouses like Jiangsu province, Lu noted the spread of Covid in nearby economies — evident in Hong Kong’s climbing case count and Taiwan’s daily average of more than 100 new deaths in the past week.
Mainland China has not reported new deaths from Covid for weeks.
“We have been in the upswing phase of China’s ‘Covid Business Cycle (CBC)’ since late May, thanks to a decline in the number of Covid-19 cases, the lifting of lockdowns and other easing of zero-Covid strategy (ZCS) restrictions, and stimulus measures,” he said. “However, another wave of Omicron could prompt a return to a downswing phase, even though the timing of such an occurrence is uncertain.”

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“None of my friends stayed in tech.” Fred Plais, the boss of Platform.sh, a cloud-computing company based in Paris, still remembers vividly what happened in Europe in 2001. The firm he ran back then, an online-search engine, closed down after the dotcom bubble burst—along with most of the other startups he knew. The story was much the same in 2008 as a result of the global financial crisis. European technology firms again suffered more than their American counterparts. Fears that the looming downturn and plummeting tech valuations will once more be hit harder in Europe than across the Atlantic were stoked on July 1st, when the Wall Street Journal reported that Klarna, a Swedish buy-now-pay-later darling, was trying to raise fresh capital at less than a fifth of its peak valuation of $46bn.Such stories notwithstanding, both Europe’s startups and its venture capitalists look much sturdier than in the past, and much less reliant on foreign know-how and capital. They may even weather the storm better than America’s this time around. To understand why, start by considering the boom. Last year was a smasher in Europe even by frenetic global standards. For the first time, venture-capital (vc) investments on the old continent exceeded €100bn ($118bn) in a single year, reports PitchBook, a data provider. Startup valuations rocketed accordingly, pushing the number of European “unicorns”, private firms worth more than $1bn, to nearly 150 today, about 13% of the world’s total. Although Europe’s tech ecosystem is still only about a third as big as America’s in terms of vc investments, it has more than doubled in size since 2020.Some of this growth is a mechanical consequence of excess capital flooding into Europe, where startup valuations had lagged behind those in America and Asia. In 2021 American vc firms invested in European deals worth $83bn, a three-fold increase on the previous year, according to PitchBook. Non-traditional investors, both American and from elsewhere, such as hedge funds and big companies’ vc arms, discovered Europe, too, participating in nearly $100bn-worth of deals, an increase of 150% from 2020.As Klarna’s attempt to raise funds implies, this surfeit of capital is poised to end this year in Europe as elsewhere. Happily for European tech, that isn’t the whole story. “The European flywheel has taken off,” says Sarah Guemouri of Atomico, a vc firm in London, referring to the idea that success in tech breeds further success. Flywheels spin at the level of the individual firm, when more users translate into better services, which draws in more users, and so on. They can also rev up the whole industry. European venture capitalism indeed looks capable of powering itself. A critical resource is talent. Last year Dealroom, another data provider, analysed the careers of 38,000 startup executives. Almost two-fifths had already worked for both small startups and established firms, signalling a growing collective experience. Similarly, when Mosaic Ventures, another European vc firm, recently looked at nearly 200 founders of unicorns, it discovered that two in three were repeat entrepreneurs. “It is the second or third time that produces a unicorn,” says Simon Levene, one of the firm’s partners.As they become more experienced, European entrepreneurs are not only becoming more ambitious, but better at telling a convincing story about what they want to achieve. Nadine Hachach-Haram, founder of Proximie, a health-care startup which uses augmented reality to allow doctors to remotely watch a surgery, is on a mission to create the “borderless operating room”. Avi Meir, who runs TravelPerk, a site to manage business travel based in Barcelona, wants it to become the place to facilitate “human connections between remote workers”, for instance by offering tools to organise real-life team meetings. Nicolas Brusson, the boss of BlaBlaCar, which started as a Parisian service to arrange shared car rides between cities, aims to turn it into a “multimodal platform” that also aggregates demand for buses and perhaps even trains globally. To some this may sound like marketing guff but it is precisely the sort of thing investors and prospective staff still want to hear. Capital is being accumulated and fed back into the industry, too. According to PitchBook, nearly €100bn in vc was raised by European funds over the past five years. Almost half of that has yet to be deployed, leaving Europe’s venture capitalists with plenty of “dry powder” to tide over startups even if the crisis drags on. European investors also tend to plough a lot of cash into early-stage startups. In 2021 European vc firms accounted for a third of all investments globally under $5m, estimates Dealroom—almost as much as their American counterparts.The number of “angels”, successful entrepreneurs who funnel some of their tech wealth back into other startups, is also growing. Some create their own vc firms. On June 28th Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of Wise, an international-payments service, and three other European entrepreneurs, launched Plural, a €250m fund. Executives lower down the food chain have also started to invest, in part because more and more European tech workers are compensated in part with their employer’s stock. A few years ago only about 10% of shares were allocated to employees, says Dominic Jacquesson of Index Ventures, a Silicon Valley vc stalwart. Thanks to legal changes, and a growing cultural acceptance of stock options, the figure is about 17%, not far off the 20% or so common in America.The structure of the tech ecosystem is also more robust now rather than a disparate collection of unlikely success stories, such as Skype, a video-conferencing service now owned by Microsoft, or Spotify, a music-streaming app. In a recent report on European unicorns Richard Kersley of Credit Suisse, a bank, and his colleagues split them into “enablers”, for example payment services like Klarna and Checkout.com, and “disrupters” (such as Getir, a Turkish delivery app) which thrive by piggybacking on such infrastructure.On top of more home-grown experience and capital, as well as a hardier structure, European firms boast certain comparative advantages that will come in handy in a leaner, post-pandemic era. One is their relative thriftiness. Although private companies are not required to disclose such numbers, indications are that their “burn rate”, the speed at which they spend money they have raised, is lower, at least at younger startups. Hiring software developers in Barcelona or Berlin costs on average only half of what it does in San Francisco or Seattle. Mature startups in Europe, meanwhile, are less geographically concentrated than their counterparts in America, both in terms of their markets and their vc support. Because Europe’s domestic markets and talent pools are limited, firms quickly expand abroad. Veriff, an Estonian online-identification service, recently opened another site in Barcelona because it could not hire enough engineers in Tallinn. As a result, about 80% of European tech companies have an international presence, compared with 61% of firms based in Silicon Valley, according to Atomico. Just one in five European firms has an office in its home territory alone and just over half are present in more than three countries. In Silicon Valley the ratio is reversed. In a crisis, such diversification is a boon.Europe’s thematic unicorn mix may also help. According to the classification used by Credit Suisse, recession-prone businesses such as consumer services are less prevalent than in America. A third of European unicorns operate in fintech, often providing payment services to other firms, thanks to the eu’s more open financial regulations. Nearly a quarter of unicorns, the bank estimates, could be put in the bucket labelled “sustainability”—a business that is likely to benefit as the world gets more serious about fighting climate change.All this helps explain why the number of unicorns has risen in Europe this year. PitchBook counted another 42 in the first six months, compared with 37 created in the same period in 2021. The coming quarters are certain to be tougher. But so is Europe’s tech. Platform.sh has just managed to raise $140m (the valuation was not disclosed, but is approaching unicorn territory). Mr Plais, its boss, is unlikely to have to go job-hunting again soon. ■ More

By midday Monday, fewer than 1,000 flights were delayed in the U.S.
Earlier in the weekend, airlines had canceled hundreds of flights while more than 10,000 were delayed.
Demand was expected to spike over the long weekend.

Lighted tunnel in the United Airlines terminal, O’Hare International Airport, Chicago Illinois.
Andrew Woodley | Universal Images Group via Getty Images

U.S. airline delays eased on Monday as weather improved, a relief for travelers and airlines as the July Fourth holiday weekend comes to an end.
As of Monday afternoon, about 1,200 U.S. flights were delayed and 183 were canceled, down from nearly 4,700 delays and more than 300 cancellations a day earlier, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware.

This year through July 3, 2.8% of the more than 4.1 million flights scheduled by U.S. airlines were canceled, up from 2.1% of the more than 4.74 million flights scheduled in the same period, according to FlightAware. And so far this year, 20.2% of flights were delayed, up from 16.7%.
about a fifth of U.S. airlines’ flights were delayed and 2.8% canceled, up from 2.1% canceled over the same period of 2019.
The weekend was key for airlines as executives expected a surge of travelers after more than two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. Passengers shelled out more for tickets as fares surpassed 2019 levels.
Industry staffing shortages, many the result of buyouts that airlines urged workers to take during the pandemic, have exacerbated routine challenges like bad weather.
U.S. airline executives will begin detailing their summer performances and providing updated outlooks for the year in quarterly reports starting midmonth. A big question is what happens after the summer-travel peak fades, as many children in the U.S. go back to school in August.

Airlines spent the last few weeks focusing on limiting summer travel disruptions. Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines and others have trimmed their schedules to give themselves more room to recover when things go wrong, such as when thunderstorms hit major airline hubs over the weekend.
Airlines and federal transportation officials have pointed fingers at one another in recent days over the cause of the flight disruptions. Airlines blamed air traffic control for lengthy delays, while the FAA and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg lashed out at airlines for letting go of workers during the pandemic, despite billions in federal aid.
Buttigieg on Saturday said one of his own flights was canceled.
“The complexity of modern aviation requires everything to work in concert,” said Matt Colbert, who previously managed operations and strategies at several U.S. carriers and is the founder of consulting firm Empire Aviation Services.
Delta took the unusual step of allowing travelers to change their flights outside of the peak July 1-4 period if they can fly though July 8, without paying a difference in fare, in hopes customers could avoid some of the disruptions on the busiest days. Envoy Air, a regional carrier owned by American Airlines, offered pilots triple pay to pick up extra shifts in July, CNBC reported last month.

“Bring patience,” Colbert said. “The people working on the other side of the counter are frustrated, too.”

European travel has become chaotic with passengers at some of the biggest hubs facing long lines and baggage delays as the industry faces staffing issues and a surge in demand.
Scandinavian airline SAS on Monday said it would be forced to cancel half of its flights after pay talks with pilots’ union representatives broke down, setting off a strike. Meanwhile, the chief operating officer of low-cost airline easyJet resigned after recent waves of flight cancellations.

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It is a messy picture in many European hotspots as airlines and airports struggle to cope with pent-up travel demand after Covid lockdowns.
Thousands of flights have been cancelled and recent travelers have queued for hours at passport control and luggage collection at airports across Europe — and the issues are expected to drag on.
“The pace at which passengers have returned to the skies since the springtime has caught airlines a little bit by surprise, and airports too,” Alexander Irving, European transport analyst at AB Bernstein, told CNBC.

Some airlines and airports are struggling with the post-covid demand for travel.
Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

LONDON — Delays, cancellations and strikes. It’s been a messy time for many European tourist hotspots as airlines and airports struggle to cope with pent-up travel demand after Covid-19 lockdowns.
Thousands of flights have been cancelled and recent travelers have queued for hours at passport control and luggage collection at airports across Europe — and the issues are expected to drag on.

“Air travel this summer is fraught with uncertainty, both for passengers and airlines,” Laura Hoy, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, told CNBC via email.
“Long delays and cancellations are likely grating on consumers’ desire to travel while airlines toe a fine line between trying to grasp hold of the post-pandemic travel boom and preparing for the likely slowdown ahead as economic conditions deteriorate.”
According to aviation data firm Cirium, 400 flights were canceled in all U.K. airports between June 24 and June 30, representing an increase of 158% from the same seven days in 2019.
And that’s outside of the peak summer season — usually between July and early September in Europe.
London’s busiest airport, Heathrow, asked airlines last week to cut flights, as passenger numbers were above what it could cope with. Some passengers were unaware their flight had been canceled, while others complained about the long queues.

There will be disruption continuing into the summer.

Stephen Furlong
Stephen Furlong, senior industry analyst at Davy

Meanwhile, low-cost airline easyJet has cut thousands of flights over the summer in an attempt to minimize the risk of disorder. Its chief operating officer, Peter Bellew, resigned Monday, with the airline saying it remained “absolutely focused on our daily operation and continues to monitor this very closely, having taken pre-emptive action to build further resilience for the summer due to the current operating environment.”
Many have also faced travel issues in the U.S. as they looked to go away for the July 4 weekend, with more than 12,000 flights delayed and hundreds canceled.
And it’s unlikely that travel chaos will unwind in the coming months, according to Stephen Furlong, senior industry analyst at wealth manager Davy.
“There will be disruption continuing into the summer whether ATC [cargo] driven or ground handling or security staff or indeed self-inflicted labour issues from the airlines,” he added.
In France in June, a quarter of flights were canceled at the main airport in Paris due to a workers’ strike.
And more strike-induced disturbance could be on the way. British Airways is preparing for a staff strike in the coming weeks as workers demand that a 10% pay cut installed during the pandemic gets reversed. And Ryanair workers in Spain said over the weekend they would be striking for 12 days in July, pushing for better work conditions. In addition, in Sweden, Scandinavian Airlines said it would continue talks with pilots on Monday in an effort to avert a new strike.

What’s causing the disruption?

There are several reasons for the travel chaos and they are mostly industry-wide problems, rather than a country- or airline-specific issue.
“The pace at which passengers have returned to the skies since the springtime has caught airlines a little bit by surprise and airports too. They simply don’t have the staff right now that we would need for a full schedule summer,” Alexander Irving, European transport analyst at AB Bernstein, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” last week.
Many airlines, airport operators and other companies within the travel sector laid-off workers during the pandemic as their businesses ground to a halt. Many of these workers looked for opportunities elsewhere and have not returned to the sector, while others were pushed into early retirement.
“Ultimately, we need more staff,” Irving said.
In addition, it’s hard to attract new talent right now given changes in the labor market, such as the so-called Great Resignation — when workers chose to quit their jobs, often without another one lined up, in search for a better work-life balance.

Hiring new people is also a medium to long-term solution, as in many travel-related jobs there’s compulsory training before workers can start their jobs.
At the same time, many of those who stayed in the sector do not feel sufficiently compensated and have complained about their work conditions.
It “probably ultimately means paying people more and treating them slightly better,” Irving said about the labor issues and strikes.
At Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, a group of cleaners, baggage handlers and security staff will be paid an additional 5.25 euros ($5.55) per hour this summer, according to Reuters. However, the same airport announced that it will be limiting its volume of passengers this summer, especially to reduce disruptions.
Other countries are also scrambling to improve the situations are their airports. In Spain, police are hiring more staff at some of the country’s busiest airports and Portugal is also increasing its border control staff.
“The response by most companies as the pandemic hit was to reduce capacity on the expectation for a sustained period of lower growth. However, the pandemic delivered a different outcome: one where the global economy was virtually switched off then switched back on within a short period of time,” Roger Jones, head of equities at London & Capital, told CNBC.

He said that on top of the labor market shortages, inflation is also an issue.
“Cost inflation, especially fuel and wages, is aggravating the situation and making it a really difficult operating environment, which is weighing on profitability,” he said via email.
Many airlines, including British Airways and Air France-KLM, received financial support from governments during the pandemic to avoid collapse. However, a number of unions and airlines are now demanding more help from governments to support the revival of the sector.
Despite the strikes, cancellations and other disruptions, some analysts are still positive about the sector and argue that the recent situation has been “overplayed.”
“I do feel though it’s overplayed by the media and the vast majority of flights are operating and on time. Ryanair, for example, while operating 115% of pre-Covid capacity have planned for this and have largely avoided disruption so far,” Davy’s Furlong said via email.

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Travelers wondering what it’s like to visit Thailand now may be interested to know the country is “allowing almost everything” again.
That’s according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), the governmental entity responsible for promoting tourism to the country.

Masks are no longer required, and the country’s color-coded system — which placed limits that varied by province on dining activities, gatherings and travel — is also a thing of the past, according to TAT.
It’s also far easier to get into Thailand now too.

What’s needed

Masks, which were once required at the beach, are no longer mandatory in Thailand.
Lillian Suwanrumpha | Afp | Getty Images

Unvaccinated travelers who show up in Thailand without a negative test result, taken within 72 hours of traveling, will be required to pay for and take a Covid-19 test on-site, according to TAT. Travelers who test positive must also pay for their medical expenses, according to a TAT representative.

Foreign travelers still must show passports and visas, if needed, to enter.

‘Thailand Pass’ no longer required

Travelers no longer need to apply for a “Thailand Pass” to enter. Introduced in May, it required travelers to submit proof of vaccination, medical insurance and other documents before departure.

We expect the momentum to continue … [now that] the Thai government removed the final restrictions for international travelers.

Michael Marshall
CCO of Minor Hotels

Fewer rules, more tourists

It didn’t take long for tourists to react to Thailand’s loosened travel rules.  
The day after the “Thailand Pass” was scrapped, tourist arrivals rose 20% to Phuket International Airport, with an estimated 9,000 people arriving on Friday, according to a report published by the Thai Public Broadcasting Service.
That same day, the number of people crossing into Thailand at various checkpoints along the borders with Malaysia and Laos also rose, according to the article.   

Indian nationals led the increase in travelers flying into Phuket last weekend, according to the Thai Public Broadcasting Service.
Mladen Antonov | Afp | Getty Images

The number of online searches for hotel bookings also climbed starting July 1, said Michael Marshall, chief commercial officer of the Thai-based hotel operator Minor Hotels.
“Although it’s early days since all restrictions have been lifted, we’ve seen close to 10,000 new searches on our website for Thailand destinations from various markets collectively since July 1st, which is a very encouraging sign of things to come.”
Even before the rule changes, Thailand’s tourism industry was picking up steam.   
International arrivals nearly quadrupled from January to May this year, according to Thailand’s Ministry of Tourism and Sports. More than 1.3 million foreigners arrived during this time, compared with fewer than 35,000 during the same period in 2021, according to the ministry’s statistics.

From January to May in 2022, 43% of Thailand’s visitors hailed from Asia, followed by 38% from Europe, according to Thailand’s Ministry of Tourism & Sports.
Alex Ogle | Afp | Getty Images

“We expect the momentum to continue … [now that] the Thai government removed the final restrictions for international travelers,” said Marshall.  
Tourism arrivals increased the most this year to Phuket, Koh Samui and areas in northern Thailand, he said.  

Road to recovery

Thailand’s tourism recovery may be headed in the right direction, but the road to recovery is expected to be long as inflation, increasing travel costs and rising Covid rates rattle global travelers. The loss of travelers from its largest source market, China, won’t help matters this year either.
Given these headwinds, Thai officials are predicting between five and 15 million international arrivals this year — a huge increase from last year’s 428,000 foreign arrivals, but a far cry from the nearly 40 million tourists who arrived in 2019, according to Reuters. More

Universal and Illumination’s “Minions: The Rise of Gru” generated more than $108 million in ticket sales during its domestic opening weekend.
The animated feature represented 54% of all domestic moviegoers over the weekend, with 68% of ticket holders being part of family groups, according to data from EntTelligence.
The film is expected to add another $20 million in ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada on Monday, bringing its holiday weekend total to $128 million.

“Minions: The Rise of Gru” is the sequel to the 2015 film, “Minions,” and spin-off/prequel to the main “Despicable Me” film series.

Families have gone bananas for “Minions: The Rise of Gru.”
Over the weekend, the Universal and Illumination animated feature tallied more than $108 million in ticket sales.

The fifth film in the Despicable Me franchise generated an additional $93.7 million from international markets, bringing its estimated opening weekend haul to $202 million globally.
“With the incredible success of ‘Minions,’ the notion that family audiences were avoiding movie theaters due to Covid concerns can be shelved,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.
Box office analysts had wondered if this segment of moviegoers was still avoiding cinemas after Disney and Pixar’s “Lightyear” took in just $51 million during its domestic debut last month, below expectations of $70 million and $85 million.
It was unclear if tough box office competition led to “Lightyear’s” less than stellar debut or if consumers were confused about the film’s release. After all, there has not been a theatrical release of a Pixar film since 2020′s “Onward.” The last three from the animation studio, “Soul,” “Luca” and “Turning Red,” were all released on streaming service Disney+.
“Minions: The Rise of Gru” represented 54% of all domestic moviegoers over the weekend, with 68% of ticket holders being part of family groups, according to data from EntTelligence.

“What this weekend has showcased is a triumphant return to cinemas by families, laying to rest any lingering and outdated pandemic narrative that parents and kids only want to watch movies at home,” said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at BoxOffice.com. “When the right content is out there, people will show up.”
The film is expected to add another $20 million in ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada on Monday, bringing its holiday weekend total to $128 million.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal is the distributor of “Minions: The Rise of Gru.”

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The pilots’ union said that aviators were able to drop assignments that included 12,000 flights.
American said the majority of dropped trips were restored and that it doesn’t expect an impact to its operation, including during the July Fourth weekend.
A similar issue occurred in 2017 before Christmas.

An American Airlines Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner approaches for a landing at the Miami International Airport on December 10, 2021 in Miami, Florida.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images

A glitch in a scheduling platform allowed American Airlines pilots to drop thousands of trips in July last night, their union said Saturday, a headache for the airline as it tries to minimize flight disruptions during a booming travel season.
American confirmed the issue and said it didn’t expect the problem to affect its operation, including during the July Fourth holiday weekend.

“As a result of this technical glitch, certain trip trading transactions were able to be processed when it shouldn’t have been permitted,” the airline said in a statement. “We already have restored the vast majority of the affected trips and do not anticipate any operational impact because of this issue.”
More than 12,000 July flights lacked either a captain, first officer or both, after pilots dropped assignments, the Allied Pilots Association said earlier.
Pilots can routinely drop or pick up trips, but time off in the summer or holidays is hard to come by for airline employees as schedules peak to cater to strong demand.
On Saturday alone, American had more than 3,000 mainline flights scheduled and they were 93% full, according to an internal tally. Flights left unstaffed, however, are an additional strain on any airline.
The glitch occurred during a rocky start to the Fourth of July weekend when thunderstorms and staffing issues caused thousands of U.S. flight delays and hundreds of cancellations.

American and its pilots’ union, whose relationship has been fraught, are in the middle of contract negotiations and the airline most recently offered nearly 17% raises through 2024. The union’s new president, Capt. Ed Sicher, began a three-year term on Friday.
American’s pilots have picketed recently against grueling schedules, something they want to be addressed in a new contract. Pilots at Delta and Southwest have picketed in recent weeks for similar reasons.
American said it has suspended a platform that allows pilots to change their schedules while it investigates the issue.
“We understand these are important tools for our pilots and are working as quickly as possible. We will provide updates throughout the day as we learn more,” American told pilots in an email Saturday.
Dennis Tajer, an American Airlines captain and spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, said the company failed to keep the IT system working properly and creating “uncertainty for passengers and pilots.”
A similar issue occurred in 2017, when a technology problem let American’s pilots take vacation during the busy December holiday period. The carrier offered pilots 150% pay for pilots that picked up assignments.

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