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Most in-flight horror stories, of which passengers everywhere experience too many, elicit a scripted apology from the airline or its chief executive. Then it is back to business; aggrieved travellers are left to stew. An incident in November on an Air India flight from New York to Delhi is playing out differently. On January 11th a court in the Indian capital heard a case of a 34-year-old man arrested for urinating while intoxicated on a 72-year-old female fellow business-class passenger. The man blamed the act on alcohol and told the court he had no memory of it when the cabin crew woke him and asked him to apologise, which he did. His bail request was nevertheless denied. Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on More

Shoppers can now purchase deeply discounted secondhand luxury clothing from Rent the Runway through Amazon.
The collaboration is Rent the Runway’s latest with a third-party retailer as it chases profitability.
The deal will also see never-worn clothing from the company’s “design collective” up for sale on Amazon.

Jennifer Hyman, Rent the Runway
Scott Mlyn | CNBC

Rent the Runway began selling its secondhand luxury clothes Thursday on Amazon as the subscription-based startup continues to chase profitability. 
Hundreds of items from the company’s “pre-loved” collection, plus new, never-worn pieces from its “design collective,” can now be purchased directly from Amazon through a virtual Rent the Runway storefront. 

Secondhand items from more than 35 brands, including Tory Sport, rag & bone, Tibi, sita murt and Kate Spade, will be available at deeply discounted rates. 
Rent the Runway, which lets customers rent designer clothing and accessories a la carte or through regular subscriptions, has been struggling to turn a profit ever since the Covid pandemic cut a hole into its business.
The company’s losses have been steadily narrowing now that customers are back out in the world and in need of fresh outfits again but for its fiscal third quarter, it still reported $36.1 million in losses. 
The company already has partnerships with ThredUp and off-price banner Saks Off Fifth to sell its used designer duds, but the Amazon collaboration with its design collective line, which features exclusive pieces created by up-and-coming designers, marks the first time the retailer will sell clothes that are yet to be worn.
Rent the Runway CEO Jennifer Hyman said the relationship could be a “key engine” of growth for the retailer. The deal was completed during the company’s fiscal third quarter and contributed approximately $4.6 million to adjusted EBITDA during that period, the company said.

“It really brings Rent the Runway much wider brand awareness,” Hyman said in an interview with CNBC. “Launching programs with major retailers like Amazon is a scaled way to find a home for inventory departing our rental ecosystem, while also further monetizing those units.”
The resale market, and Amazon’s wide customer base, offer a path to profitability, Hyman said. 
The total resale market in the U.S. is on track to top $64 billion by the end of 2024, according to research firm GlobalData. Worldwide, it’s estimated to be worth between $100 billion and $120 billion, according to research from Boston Consulting Group. 
When BCG’s research was published in October, resale products made up approximately 25% of secondhand buyers’ closets. In 2023, that number is expected to jump to 27%. 
Overall, BCG expects resale to comprise about 15% of the total luxury market by the end of 2023.
— CNBC’s Melissa Repko contributed to this article. More

Sotheby’s is selling a rare Kobe Bryant jersey worn during his 2007-2008 MVP season.
The jersey is expected to be the most valuable piece of Bryant memorabilia ever sold at auction.
Sotheby’s expects the jersey to sell for between $5 million and $7 million in the online auction.

Sotheby’s is selling Kobe Bryant’s MVP season jersey.
Source: Sotheby’s

An iconic piece of Kobe Bryant memorabilia is hitting the auction block, and it’s expected to be his most valuable item ever to go up for sale.
Sotheby’s is listing a Kobe Bryant jersey, worn in 25 games during his 2007-2008 MVP season. The company said it expects the jersey to sell for between $5 million and $7 million in the online auction.

Images of Bryant in the jersey have garnered worldwide recognition since the basketball star’s sudden death three years ago.
“To have this jersey from that iconic moment is not only really special, but it has also served as this point of inspiration all over the world of Kobe in this jersey,” Brahm Wachter, Sotheby’s head of streetwear and modern collectibles, told CNBC.

Photo by Greg Cohen of Los Angeles Kobe Mural by Jonas Never, included in the lot
Source: Sotheby’s

The now-famous image of Bryant was taken April 23, 2008, in Game 2 of the Western Conference series. With 5 minutes and 22 seconds remaining, Bryant sank a three-pointer securing a 14-point lead for the Los Angeles Lakers. The image from that moment of the basketball star screaming with glee and pulling at his No. 24 jersey is known the world over, commemorating his only MVP season.
Bryant wore the jersey in 25 games over an eight-month period, in which he averaged 25.8 points per game, Wachter said.
Since the five-time NBA champion’s untimely death in a helicopter crash in January 2020, Bryant memorabilia has seen strong demand, with sales rivaling another legend — Michael Jordan.

Sotheby’s made headlines in September for selling Michael Jordan’s 1998 “Last Dance” jersey for $10.1 million, a record-breaking auction. But before that, a Jordan jersey from his professional career had yet to surpass $1 million.
Meanwhile, Bryant jerseys have previously sold for $3.69 million in 2021, the existing record for a piece of the late player’s memorabilia, and $2.7 million in June 2022.
“Kobe is someone who doesn’t just inspire basketball players, he inspires other athletes, he inspires executives and business people. It’s somebody that touches a lot of different people and so in that sense, I think perhaps he’s one of the strongest markets, period,” Wachter said.
Many investors have turned to the sports collectible markets in recent years as a way to diversify assets amid turmoil in traditional investing markets.
Sotheby’s said demand for sports artifacts remains strong and that it’s seen a number of private transactions at high levels.
Bidding for the jersey begins online Feb. 2 and lasts until Feb. 9.

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Walmart wants to sell more of its own technology and services to other retailers.
It has struck a deal with Salesforce, so it can get in front of more potential customers.
Walmart also wants to sell more of its customer insights, fulfillment services and digital advertising.

A shopper pushes a cart through the parking lot of a Walmart on the morning of Black Friday in Wilmington, Delaware, on November 25, 2022.
Samuel Corum | AFP | Getty Images

As times get tighter in retail, Walmart is chasing a new side hustle.
The retail giant, known for selling groceries, toothpaste, toys and more in its big-box stores, wants to sell more of its technology and services to other companies. On Thursday, it announced a deal with Salesforce to ramp up sales of its GoLocal delivery service, which drops off purchases at customers’ doors; and Store Assist, which helps employees more quickly and accurately pick and pack orders for curbside pickup and delivery.

Starting this spring, the services will be offered through Salesforce and listed in its app store for businesses.
Walmart’s latest push to commercialize its tech comes as the retail environment gets tougher. Inflation has forced shoppers to spend more on necessities, driving higher sales of Walmart’s groceries. But the company is also selling fewer higher-margin items like electronics, clothes and other discretionary merchandise.
Walmart Global Chief Technology Officer Suresh Kumar said the deal with Salesforce will help Walmart improve the experience for shoppers.
“By bringing in other retailers, we can understand what the customer needs are throughout the shopping journey and then be able to improve our products to be able to serve the customer no matter how, where or when they shop,” he said. “That ultimately is going to benefit us also because we will continue to keep improving our products.”
For instance, as Walmart’s GoLocal has more packages to deliver from more retailers, its drivers will have denser routes, he said. That brings down the cost of Walmart’s last-mile deliveries and allows a driver to drop off a customer’s packages from multiple retailers in a single stop.

Walmart has looked for new and more profitable ways to turn its millions of customers and more than 5,300 U.S. stores and warehouse clubs into more money. Those efforts include growing its advertising business, Walmart Connect; attracting more sellers to its third-party marketplace and selling them fulfillment services; and charging for Walmart Luminate, a customer insights tool for merchants and suppliers. It co-founded and backed a financial technology startup. It also launched Walmart+, a subscription service that is the retailer’s answer to Amazon Prime.
Walmart launched GoLocal in 2021 and has signed on customers, including Home Depot and Chico’s. It began selling Store Assist, technology that its own store employees use, in the summer.
With the moves, Walmart is taking a page from rival Amazon’s playbook. Over the past two years, Amazon has licensed its cashierless checkout technology, called “Just Walk Out,” and signed up airports, sports stadiums, arenas and a Missouri grocer to bring the technology to their stores. It’s also looked to sell its palm-scanning payment system and launched an analytics service where brands pay for data on how their products perform in Amazon’s physical stores.
Walmart has not disclosed details of the commercial agreements or estimated how large its commercialization business could become. Yet it is showing signs of growth. GoLocal has made more than 3 million deliveries so far, Walmart said. It surpassed 1 million deliveries in August.
Walmart’s newer businesses have become a regular part of the company’s earnings calls, too. In November, Walmart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said Walmart added more than 8,000 sellers to its third-party marketplace in the fiscal third quarter. Its digital advertising business increased over 30% in the quarter globally, led by 40% growth in Walmart Connect in the U.S. and ads on Flipkart, an e-commerce site in India that it majority owns.
Salesforce Chief Product Officer David Schmaier said retailers are hungry for solutions as they try to keep up with customers who have high expectations and who shift between shopping in store, ordering purchases to their homes and retrieving online purchases in the store or parking lot. According to Salesforce data, one in five online orders placed the weekend before Christmas were picked up at the store.
Walmart will stand out in its app store as a technology by retailers and for retailers, he added.
Still, even with all it’s offering to other companies, Walmart is being mindful about not giving away its secret sauce, said Kumar, the company’s technology chief. Some of its technologies won’t be for sale.
“We are actually very deliberate in terms of choosing the kinds of technologies that we want to offer to other businesses,” he said.
–CNBC’s Annie Palmer contributed to this story.

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American expects fourth-quarter revenue to rise as much as 17% from 2019.
The carrier previously forecast an 11% to 13% increase.
American raised its outlook despite a rocky end to the year that saw severe winter weather disrupt holiday travel.

Planes are seen at Charlotte Douglas International Airport on December 28, 2022 in Charlotte, United States.
Peter Zay | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

American Airlines shares rose nearly 5% in premarket trading Thursday after the carrier hiked its revenue and profit estimates for the fourth quarter thanks to strong demand and high fares.
American estimates revenue rose as much as 17% over 2019, up from a previous forecast of an 11% to 13% increase over the period three years earlier, before the Covid pandemic.

American said revenue per seat mile likely climbed 24% in the quarter from 2019, above its prior forecast of 18% to 20%.
It expects to report adjusted earnings per share of between $1.12 and $1.17, up from its previous estimate of between 50 cents and 70 cents.
The update Thursday is the first indication of how a major airline coped with a rocky end of the year, when severe weather sparked mass cancellations around the U.S. during the busy holiday travel season. American is scheduled to report full results on Jan. 26.
Delta Air Lines is set to announce quarterly results Friday morning. Its shares were up more than 2% in premarket trading.

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More than 10,000 flights were delayed on Wednesday after the FAA’s ground stop.
The agency traced the problem to a damaged data file.
The FAA and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle said they plan to investigate.

Travelers as flights are cancelled at Ronald Reagan National Airport (DCA) in Arlington, Virginia, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2023.
Nathan Howard | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Air travel disruptions eased Thursday, a day after a severe pilot safety alert system failure sparked the delay of close to half of U.S. flights.
The Federal Aviation Administration halted U.S. flight departures early Wednesday after an outage of the Notice to Air Mission system, which provides pilots and others with safety information such as runway hazards.

The FAA said a preliminary review traced the outage to a “damaged database file.” The issues started around 3:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday. Unable to fix the problem, the FAA rebooted the system, and ordered the ground stop, which it lifted around 9 a.m. on Wednesday.
That caused a cascade of U.S. flight delays, which totaled 10,563, according to FlightAware. More than 1,300 flights were canceled. Close to 500 Thursday flights were delayed to, from and within the U.S., and 63 were scrubbed.
The outage and rare nationwide ground stop highlighted yet again how a failure of one of the numerous systems that underpin the U.S. aviation system can so dramatically derail air travel for hundreds of thousands of passengers.
The incident came just weeks after an internal Southwest Airlines platform was overloaded after mass cancellations from severe weather over the year-end holidays, creating a dayslong meltdown that the carrier says could cost it more than $800 million.
The FAA’s outage prompted questions from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, and will likely lead to hearings and debate over additional funding for the U.S. aviation regulator. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg vowed to investigate.

“When there’s a problem with a government system, we’re going to own it, we’re going to find it and we’re going to fix it,” he told reporters Wednesday.
There was no evidence of a cyberattack, the FAA said. Both the primary and back-up systems were fed the corrupted data file, according to a person familiar with the matter.
“The FAA is working diligently to further pinpoint the causes of this issue and take all needed steps to prevent this kind of disruption from happening again,” the agency said late Wednesday.

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About half of the nearly 2,000 workers at the Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine got Covid-19 during the latest wave, director Liu Qingquan said.
All were treated with traditional Chinese medicine, and only one person developed pneumonia, he said.
While the latest Covid outbreak has eased, “from the perspective of the hospital, our pressure is still very great,” Wang Guiqiang, director of the infectious diseases department at Peking University First Hospital, said.

Locals line up for medical treatment at the Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine on June 1, 2022.
CFOTO | Future Publishing | Getty Images

BEIJING — About half of the nearly 2,000 workers at the Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine got Covid-19 during the latest wave, director Liu Qingquan said Wednesday.
Liu told reporters the workers all recovered by taking traditional Chinese medicine. He said out of the 1,000 staff infected, only one, who already had high blood pressure, developed pneumonia.

China has encouraged the use of traditional Chinese medicine alongside Western treatment for Covid. Rather than pharmaceutical drugs, traditional Chinese medicine relies on herb-based remedies and natural methods to help the body heal itself.
The omicron variant swept China in December as authorities abruptly ended most Covid controls. Local businesses reported the majority of their staff fell sick within a week, before recovering. Tens of thousands of people rushed to fever clinics in a single day in the city of Beijing alone, local authorities said.
Due to the surge in patients, doctors and nurses couldn’t return home for several days, Liu said. He said the health workers sometimes had to work while they themselves were sick and taking medication.

In the last two weeks, officials in Beijing city and other Chinese urban centers have said they’ve passed the worst of the Covid outbreak.
While the situation has eased, “from the perspective of the hospital, our pressure is still very great,” Wang Guiqiang, director of the infectious diseases department at Peking University First Hospital, said Wednesday. That’s according to a CNBC translation of his Mandarin-language remarks.

The hospital turned additional wards into areas for intensive care, and trained doctors to become ICU nurses, Wang said.

Pfizer’s Covid-19 drug

In the wake of China’s latest Covid wave, locals also rushed to stock up on medicine, resulting in shortages and long lines outside pharmacies last month.
Pfizer’s Paxlovid drug for treating Covid remains in short supply domestically, Wang said. But he said the drug will soon be produced in China by a local company.
Pfizer has signed an agreement with a local partner to manufacture Paxlovid in China, CEO Albert Bourla said Monday at the JPMorgan Health Care Conference, according to a transcript. He said local production could begin in as soon as three or four months.

Read more about China from CNBC Pro

Paxlovid will only be covered by China’s basic national health insurance until March 31, China’s Healthcare Security Administration said Sunday. The drug failed to make an annual list of insurance-covered medicines because Pfizer asked for too high a price, the administration said.
CEO Bourla said what China wanted to pay was “lower than the lowest of the middle” price bracket — a range that’s 60% to 70% below what high-income countries pay.
“We didn’t agree,” Bourla said. “They are the second highest economy in the world. And I don’t think that they should pay less than [El] Salvador.”
If negotiations don’t change the situation by April, Bourla said, “we will continue with the private market in China, which is significant.”
Demand for Paxlovid from China has exploded from a few thousands to the millions, he said, without elaborating.
Merck and Chinese companies are also selling Covid drugs to the local market.

Focus on treatment

Since mandatory testing for Covid ended in early December, official numbers on the local outbreak have dropped off sharply.
When asked about Covid deaths, Wang said calculating excess deaths was the best way, such as comparing figures to December 2021.
It’s not clear how soon those numbers would be available. China has said only a handful of deaths meet its criteria for being tied to Covid. Anecdotes indicate overall deaths in the country have increased since December.
“At this time I don’t think it’s necessary to look into every single case. The priority should be treating patients,” said Liang Wannian, executive vice-dean of the Vanke School of Public Health at Tsinghua University. That’s according to a CNBC translation of his Mandarin-language remarks Wednesday.
Liang said the country would watch for new Covid variants and report them in a timely fashion. He did not go into much detail on the procedures for doing so.
A change in the hospitalization or death rate associated with Covid would be the earliest indication of a new variant, Dr. Chris Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, said in late December. He said the likelihood of a new Covid variant emerging in China is low.
The World Health Organization said this week that China is providing more information on the Covid-19 outbreak, but the country is still heavily underreporting deaths, according to Reuters.
On Wednesday, Liang said that especially in rural areas, the most difficult phase of China’s Covid wave has passed.
But he said according to China’s latest Covid policy, local authorities facing a large outbreak could still move classes online and limit large gatherings.

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The retail market in particular will reap the “best benefit,” Hannah Jeong, Colliers’ head of valuation and advisory services, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Thursday.
In the office sector, Grade A office rents will bounce back by 3% this year, said Colliers — thanks to “pent-up demand from Chinese and overseas companies.” 

In light of China’s reopening and easing of Covid rules, Hong Kong’s property market will be on a path to recovery in 2023, according to property consultancy Colliers Hong Kong.  
The retail market in particular will reap the “best benefit,” Hannah Jeong, Colliers’ head of valuation and advisory services, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Thursday.

However, there are still some potential headwinds this year that may undercut Hong Kong’s recovery, Colliers said in its latest report. Those include continued geopolitical tension and a potential global recession.
“We are looking at a more cautiously optimistic view for 2023,” Jeong added.
“There will be different uncertainties from external factors but borders opening is surely the one of the booster[s] for many other sectors within the property market.” 

Retail to be ‘first runner’

According to Colliers, the retail sector — especially the high street shop segment — will be the “first runner” in the post-Covid recovery in 2023 with both rents and prices. 
“We are looking at about an 8% increase year-on-year, in terms of the retail rental performance,” Jeong added. 

She said, however, this is still about 25% to 30% lower than pre-Covid levels.
Collier added in its report that despite China’s reopening, local consumption will remain “an important driver” for Hong Kong’s retail market in the next 12 months.

“The shifted shopping pattern of the Mainlanders over the last three years may paint a new picture to the new retail market sentiment,” it added. 
In the office sector, Grade A office rents will bounce back by 3% this year, said Colliers — thanks to “pent-up demand from Chinese and overseas companies.” 
Even so, Jeong said that Hong Kong’s office market still has a high vacancy rate, at 14.7%.
“But it’s not it’s not the end of the world because … compared with other peer cities, 8% to 10% is a generally reasonable number,” she added. 

Residential market demand to dampen 

Hong Kong’s home prices plunged to a five-year low in October as interest rates hikes pushed up borrowing costs. 
This resulted in a “softening of investment demand,” said Jeong, but the demand from homebuyers still exists. 
“Homebuyers … [have been] utilizing this time when market is softening, they can snatch the cheaper flats,” she added. 

“But in 2023, I think the interest rate … will continue to go up. We are looking at stabilization at least in the second half of this year.”
Just last month, Hong Kong raised interest rates by 50 basis points to 4.75%, following the U.S. Federal Reserve.
High costs of borrowing will dampen residential market demand and a “negative 5% to 10% downward adjustment” should hence be expected this year, Jeong said. 

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