Gina Marie Lindsey, former aviation director at Sea-Tac Airport, was named executive director of Los Angeles' airports agency today.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced the appointment at a press conference this afternoon. If she passes muster with the Los Angeles City Council, she will assume command of the LAX and three other airports in Van Nuys, Ontario and Palmdale.

"In searching for a new executive director, we knew we needed someone with experience, with an ability to build bridges and with a vision for moving the area's airports forward," Villaraigosa said. "And we found the perfect candidate in Gina Marie Lindsey."

She will inherit an airport engaged in a court battle with some of its airline tenants over rent raises and paralyzed in planning how to create more capacity at one of the nation's largest airports.

Before Lindsey served more than a decade at Sea-Tac, she was director of the Anchorage International Airport. At Sea-Tac, she guided a controversial $4.1 billion project to remodel and add on to terminals and to construct a third runway. At Anchorage, she turned the airport into a major international cargo hub.

In recent years she served as executive of McBee Strategic Consulting in Washington, D.C.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is designating the Port of Tacoma as a test center for technologies that detect radiation from containers that loaded directly from ships to rail cars.

The DHS plans to officially announce the designation Friday at the Port of Tacoma.

Port security legislation passed by Congress last year requires that the nation's 22 largest ports install radiation monitors. All containers passing through the ports must be scanned for radiation by the end of this year.

Ports have figured out how to do this for containers loaded onto trucks. In fact terminals at the Port of Tacoma began installing Radiation Portal Monitors – drive-thru radiation scanners – in 2006.

Here what that looks like:

The monitors detect high levels of radiation, something that prompts the U.S. Customs & Border Patrol to do additional inspections.

But how to scan containers traveling via rail – which at the Port of Tacoma is the vast majority of international cargo. The test center designation will allow Tacoma to figure that out.

The port had a wee hint they'd be selected for the job last October after Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) tailored the amendment that establishes the rail test center so that the Port of Tacoma was the best option for it.

With Mother's Day approaching, CareerBuilder.com (an employment Web site owned in part by The News Tribune parent McClatchy) has conducted a survey of moms who are employed full-time and who have children under 18 living at home.
Among the findings:
• 25 percent say they are dissatisfied with their work/life balance.
• 44 percent say they would take a pay cut if they could spend more time with their children.
• Of moms who are not the sole financial provider, 49 percent say they would leave their job if their spouse or significant other earned enough to provide a comfortable living.
• 23 percent say say they have missed three or more significant events in their child's life during the past year.
• 31 percent say they bring work home at least once a week.
• 28 percent say their job is "negatively impacting" the relationship they have with their children.

The Port of Tacoma will receive $11.7 million in federal funding for port security, Sen. Patty Murray's office announced today.

The money is part of $18 million in grants coming to the state's ports. The funds will go towards projects including chemical detectors, cameras, security gates, access controls, and training and exercises, according Murray's office.

Mike Wasem, Port of Tacoma spokeman, said the port has received almost $19 million – including the most recent grant – for port security projects from federal sources since 2002.

A thousand free airline tickets from Vancouver to Hong Kong were snapped up early Wednesday after they became available on Oasis Hong Kong Airlines' Web site at midnight.

But bargain tickets remained available for the new low-cost carrier's new six-times weekly flight between Vancouver and the Chinese city.

Coach tickets were priced as low as $299 Canadian one way (that's about $256 U.S.). Roundtrip tickets including taxes were available for about $673 U.S. on Oasis in coach. The carrier was also offering a two-for-one deal in business class.

That compares with normal Hong Kong roundtrip fares of about $1,400 on Cathay Pacific or Canadian. Service starts June 28 on the route. Oasis says its coach seats are as comfortable as those on legacy carriers.

Nintendo of America apparently has dropped plans for a 550,000-square-foot expansion at its U.S. headquarters in this Seattle suburb, and a local official says 80 jobs are being moved to New York or San Francisco, the Associated Press reported today.

James L. Roberts, the municipality’s deputy planning director, said he was told by a Nintendo real estate executive, Bruce Meyer, that Redmond will remain the company’s headquarters but that planning, marketing and advertising operations will be moved to New York or San Francisco.

Meyer did not return calls for comment and other officials at the U.S. arm of the Japanese electronic game manufacturer would not comment, The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Wednesday.

Other Nintendo of America operations in Redmond, where the company moved in 1982, include writing, translating, game testing, customer service and administration. A production plant is located in North Bend, 20 miles to the southeast.

Sears and Kmart are debuting new marketing pushes. Playing off its “blue light special” history, Kmart is calling its promotion “Mr. Blue Light,” which will take consumers on a tour of Kmarts and “shine” on specials, according to trade magazine Brandweek.

Sears will unveil TV ads pointing to the retailer’s days as a specialty mail-order catalog. Under the theme, “Sears. Where it begins,” the retailer will promote itself as a one-stop store, highlighting such products as baby clothes, washers and dryers, lawn mowers and widescreen TVs, Brandweek reported. The new tagline: “Sears ignites true possibilities for life at home.”

In a transaction that may foreshadow Airbus' strategy of winning back market share from Boeing, India's Flyington Fliers has ordered six Airbus A330 freighters instead of the four Boeing 777-200F freighters it previously had ordered.

The A330F is not quite as large and capable as the 777-200F, but the Indian freight carrier reportedly got six A330Fs for the same price Boeing wanted for four 777s.

While that strategy may even out the order book inequalities, will it, in the end, make Airbus a healthier manufacturer?

If you lose or make only a small amount on each aircraft, especially when you're facing a multi-billion dollar deficit from the A380's problems, will you survive?

Certainly it's important to show that you're still in the game, and stealing an order from Boeing says that. And if you get an infant carrier such as Flyington started with your planes instead of your rival's, you should be able to count on follow-up orders that you can price more profitably. The trick is staying in business until that happens, but with Airbus' government guarantees, that's not the issue it would be for Boeing.