Silicon Valley and the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, have a strained relationship. Regulators in Brussels blame American tech giants for everything from the struggles of European startups to teenage depression. American tech firms whinge that they are targeted by jealous Europeans. Now, after years of acrimony, a détente is possible. On December 1st a new commission took office. More
“We’ve got your back,” Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, told parents on November 29th, a day after pushing through some of the world’s strictest limits on screentime. One year from now, under-16s will be banned from using social media, in a move intended to protect them from harm. Teenagers groaned. Parents discreetly high-fived. Policymakers around the world took notes. More
American Airlines has co-branded credit card deals with Citi and Barclays because of its 2013 merger with US Airways.
Co-branded credit card deals bring in billions for airlines and drive profitability.
The new deal with Citi takes effect in January 2026.
American Airlines planes sit parked at LaGuardia airport on traditionally the busiest travel day, the day before the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving, in the Queens borough of New York City, U.S., November 27, 2024.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters
American Airlines has inked a long-awaited credit card deal with Citigroup, dropping its other partner, Barclays.
The airline said Wednesday that it expects payments it receives from its co-branded credit card and other partners to grow 10% a year. In the 12 months through Sept. 30, American brought in $5.6 billion from these deals.
CNBC reported in September that the airline was in talks to pick Citi as its exclusive credit card partner.
This is breaking news. Check back for updates. More
JetBlue has been focused on cutting unprofitable flights to stem losses.
The carrier also has been trimming underperforming routes to focus on core markets.
JetBlue is ending some Miami flights and said the carrier will be overstaffed there.
Silhouette of passenger in front of the JetBlue Airbus A321neo aircraft spotted on the apron tarmac docked at the passenger jet bridge from the terminal of Amsterdam Schiphol International Airport AMS EHAM in the Netherlands.
Nicholas Economou | Nurphoto | Getty Images
JetBlue Airways told staff Wednesday that it is axing more unprofitable flights, redeploying aircraft outfitted with its high-value business class and tweaking Europe service, the carrier’s latest moves to return to consistent profitability and cut costs.
It will also stop using planes with Mint business class on Seattle flights in April.
JetBlue said it will cut flights from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Jacksonville, Florida; from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Austin, Texas; Houston, Texas; Miami; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and from Westchester, N.Y. and Milwaukee. It will also end service to San Jose, California.
JetBlue said ending service between JFK and Miami will make the carrier over-staffed in Miami and that it’s working with crew members on options, like working in other cities it serves.
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“Florida remains a strong geography for JetBlue, however post-COVID we haven’t been profitable in Miami due to the dominance of legacy carriers like American and Delta there,” wrote Dave Jehn, JetBlue’s vice president of network planning and airline partnerships, in a staff note, which was seen by CNBC.
It will continue serving Miami from Boston.
JetBlue will announce some new Europe service next week, the memo said. But starting in the summer 2025 travel season, it will drop its second JFK-Paris flight and its summer-only service between New York and London’s Gatwick Airport, said Jehn.
The changes were announced after JetBlue said its revenue and bookings have come in better than expected for November and December, sending shares up more than 8% on Wednesday. CEO Joanna Geraghty and her team are focusing on reducing costs and culling unprofitable routes, such as those on the West Coast, as they grapple with a Pratt & Whitney engine grounding and post-pandemic shifts in demand.
JetBlue said customers who are affected by the changes can select alternate flight options or receive a refund if other routes aren’t available.
“Recently, we made some network adjustments in certain markets, removing some underperforming flying from our schedule, allowing us to redeploy resources, including our popular Mint service, toward high-demand markets and new opportunities,” JetBlue said in a statement. More
American Eagle cut its full-year sales forecast and issued holiday guidance that came in below expectations.
The apparel retailer saw strong demand during back-to-school but said consumers are pulling back between key moments.
American Eagle’s Aerie brand saw strong growth, with comparable sales up 5%, on top of 12% in the year-ago period.
A shopper walks by an American Eagle store on November 21, 2023 in Glendale, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
American Eagle shares dropped about 13% in extended trading Wednesday after the company reported third-quarter earnings in which it issued weak holiday guidance and cut its full-year forecast. The company said it’s contending with value-seeking consumers who are only willing to spend during key shopping moments.
The apparel retailer narrowly missed Wall Street’s expectations on the top line, but beat on the bottom line.
Here’s how American Eagle performed during its fiscal third quarter compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:
Earnings per share: 48 cents adjusted vs. 46 cents expected
Revenue: $1.29 billion vs. $1.30 billion expected
The company’s reported net income for the three-month period that ended Nov. 2 was $80 million, or 41 cents per share, compared with $96.7 million, or 49 cents per share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time charges related to restructuring and impairment costs, American Eagle posted an adjusted profit of 48 cents per share.
Sales dropped to $1.29 billion, down about 1% from $1.3 billion a year earlier.
While it was narrow, Wednesday’s miss is the third quarter in a row that American Eagle has not met Wall Street’s sales targets.
In a statement, CEO Jay Schottenstein touted a “strong” back-to-school shopping season but said demand remains inconsistent between major shopping events.
“We have entered the holiday season well positioned, with our leading brands offering high-quality merchandise, great gifts and an outstanding shopping experience across channels,” Schottenstein said. “Key selling periods have seen a positive customer response, yet we remain cognizant of potential choppiness during non-peak periods.”
Consumers coming out for key shopping moments followed by sales sharply dropping off has been a consistent theme across the retail industry. Foot Locker cited a similar dynamic when reporting earnings earlier Wednesday, as did Dollar Tree.
For its holiday quarter, American Eagle is expecting comparable sales to be up around 1%, with total sales down about 4%, including an $85 million impact from having one less selling week and a later start to the holiday shopping season. The outlook is below the 2.2% comparable sales growth StreetAccount was looking for and the 1% sales decline LSEG had expected.
As a result, American Eagle is now expecting comparable sales to grow by 3% for the full year, down from prior guidance of 4% growth and below StreetAccount’s estimate of 4.1%. It’s now expecting full-year sales to be up 1%, down from previous guidance of between 2% and 3% and below LSEG expectations of 2.5% growth.
Similar to other retailers, American Eagle had taken a cautious approach to the back half of the year as it contended with uncertainty around the 2024 election and the overall macroeconomic environment. But unlike its competitors, it has kept that cautious tone.
Both Abercrombie & Fitch and Dick’s Sporting Goods, which issued cautious outlooks earlier this year, reversed their previous mood when reporting earnings earlier this month.
Despite the underwhelming outlook and sales miss, American Eagle is seeing strong demand for its Aerie brand. Third-quarter revenue for Aerie came in at an all-time high for the company, and comparable sales grew 5%, on top of 12% growth from the year-ago period. More
For MORE than two years most Russian businesses carried on unscathed by the war in Ukraine. A surge in defence spending and subsidised loans for consumers and firms propped up spending at home, even as sanctions curtailed access to foreign markets and inflation jumped. Western companies from Volkswagen, a German carmaker, to Shell, a Dutch oil giant, sold their Russian operations to local enterprises. After an initial tumble, the MOEX, an index of Russian stocks, steadily recovered (see chart). More
President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday nominated Jared Isaacman, a private astronaut and the billionaire CEO of Shift4, to be the next NASA administrator.
Isaacman has led two private spaceflights through SpaceX, including the company’s first spacewalk in September.
“It is the honor of a lifetime to serve in this role and to work alongside NASA’s extraordinary team to realize our shared dreams of exploration and discovery,” Isaacman wrote in a statement.
Inspiration4 mission commander Jared Isaacman, founder and chief executive officer of Shift4 Payments, stands for a portrait in front of the recovered first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket at Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) on February 2, 2021 in Hawthorne, California.
Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images
President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday nominated Jared Isaacman, the billionaire CEO of Shift4 who has led two private spaceflights, to be the next head of NASA.
“Jared will drive NASA’s mission of discovery and inspiration, paving the way for groundbreaking achievements in Space science, technology, and exploration,” Trump wrote in a post on social media.
Isaacman accepted Trump’s nomination to be NASA administrator in a statement: “Having been fortunate to see our amazing planet from space, I am passionate about America leading the most incredible adventure in human history.”
“It is the honor of a lifetime to serve in this role and to work alongside NASA’s extraordinary team to realize our shared dreams of exploration and discovery,” Isaacman said.
Isaacman said he plans to leave Shift4 once he’s confirmed as NASA administrator. In a letter to Shift4 employees, Isaacman wrote he intends “to remain CEO until my confirmation” and “retain the majority of my equity interest,” but will reduce his shareholder voting power.
Jared Isaacman, Mission Commander, steps out of the manned Polaris Dawn mission’s “Dragon” capsule after it splashed down off the coast of Dry Tortugas, Florida, after completing the first human spaceflight mission by non-government astronauts of the Polaris Program.
– | Afp | Getty Images
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is currently led by Administrator Bill Nelson, nominated in 2021 by President Joe Biden. Nelson did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Nelson, a former U.S. Senator, currently oversees NASA’s nearly $25 billion budget. During his tenure, the space agency launched the first uncrewed mission under its top priority, the multi-billion dollar Artemis moon program. But subsequent planned crewed missions, ultimately aiming to return U.S. astronauts to the lunar surface, have been heavily delayed and over budget.
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Isaacman has led two private spaceflights through SpaceX, in 2021 and 2024, commanding a pair of crews on multiday trips around the Earth.
His spaceflight ambitions have fostered an increasingly close relationship with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who has become an influential figure in Trump’s administration planning.
Isaacman has previously criticized NASA’s Artemis architecture, particularly the program’s heavy spending on its expendable SLS rockets and the agency’s decision to award a second crewed lunar lander contract to Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.
“Spend billions on lunar lander redundancy that you don’t have with SLS at the expense of dozens of scientific programs. I don’t like it,” Isaacman wrote in a post earlier this year.
Polaris Dawn commander Jared Isaacman emerges from SpaceX’s Dragon capsule during a spacewalk on Sept. 12, 2024.
In addition to running payments company Shift4, Isaacman has been leading an effort called the Polaris Program — a trio of missions with increasingly ambitious goals.
The first mission in that program, Polaris Dawn, launched earlier this year and saw Isaacman conduct a brief spacewalk from SpaceX’s Dragon capsule — the company’s first such extravehicular activity, or EVA, in space.
“Back at home we all have a lot of work to do, but from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world,” Isaacman said during the spacewalk after emerging from the capsule. More
Disney unveiled an ESPN tile on Disney+ on Wednesday.
ESPN is making about 100 live games available for Disney+ subscribers who aren’t signed up for ESPN+.
ESPN is developing two sports studio shows just for Disney+ geared to casual sports fans.
SportsCenter at ESPN Headquarters.
The Washington Post | The Washington Post | Getty Images
ESPN is coming to Disney+. Now, the sports network wants to make sure Disney+ users come to ESPN.
Walt Disney debuted a dedicated ESPN tile Wednesday on Disney+ for people who subscribe to ESPN+, its sports streaming platform, to watch programming without leaving the Disney+ application. Next fall, when ESPN launches its yet-to-be-named “flagship” service, those subscribers will get full access to all ESPN content through the ESPN tile on Disney+.
Disney is making about 100 live games available to Disney+ members without a corresponding ESPN subscription. Those events will span college football and basketball, the National Basketball Association and WNBA, the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, tennis, golf, the Little League World Series, and UFC, ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in an interview.
Next week’s alternate “Simpsons” telecast of the NFL’s “Monday Night Football” game between the Cincinnati Bengals and Dallas Cowboys will also be available to Disney+ subscribers, as well as five NBA Christmas games.
“Now when you subscribe to Disney+, you’ll have access to kids and family, general entertainment if you’re a Hulu subscriber, and sports,” said Pitaro. “Our goal is to serve sports fans anytime, anywhere.”
ESPN will also include some of its studio programming — such as “College Gameday,” “Pardon the Interruption” and certain podcasts that include video — on Disney+ for non-ESPN subscribers. Some ESPN sports-related films and documentaries will also appear on Disney+ married to whatever sports season is active, Pitaro said.
ESPN’s programming will also be integrated within the Disney+ search, similar to Hulu’s integration earlier this year. If a Disney+ subscriber who isn’t an ESPN customer clicks on something that requires an ESPN subscription, the user will be prompted to sign up within the app.
New content for Disney+
ESPN is also creating two studio shows specifically for Disney+, Pitaro said. The first will be a daily “SportsCenter” just for Disney+ subscribers, which will air live on Disney+ at a set time and then remain on the platform for on-demand viewing.
The second is a women’s sports show that may air weekly or several times a week. Both programs are in development and will be made for a more casual sports fan, said Pitaro.
“Our research shows there’s very little overlap between people watching Disney+ and ESPN linear,” said Pitaro.
Disney+ has a strong female audience that Pitaro hopes will tune into the weekly’s women’s show, which he first alluded to in an interview with CNBC Sport in October.
ESPN+ has about 30,000 live games each year and costs $11.99 per month when purchased separately from Disney+. A Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ bundle (with ads) costs $16.99 per month.
Disclosure: Comcast, which owns CNBC parent NBCUniversal, is a co-owner of Hulu.
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