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Contributors
Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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American and Delta airlines have followed United Airlines' lead in posting a big fare increase to airline industry computerized reservations systems today.
That increase, as much as $60 roundtrip for flights more than 1,500 miles will be the 12th successful increase that major carriers have posted this year if other carriers follow suit.
The fare increases follow American's move at midweek to charge customers $15 each way to check their first bag.
Both the fare increases and the fee hikes are aimed at keeping the carriers flying in what some analysts are saying is a bigger crisis than the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
That crisis is being driven by sharply rising fuel prices. Crude oil costs have doubled since this time last year, and jet fuel prices have increase even more.
The latest fare increases are happening as rumors emerge of even more bankruptcies in the industry. A handful of airlines, most of them smaller, have already gone bankrupt this spring. Among those, Aloha, Skybus, Eos and ATA are liquidating. Denver's Frontier Airlines is trying to reorganize, but high fuel prices, nervous banks and increased pressure from Southwest Airlines at Frontier's Denver hub have some industry observers suggesting that Frontier won't find financing to emerge from bankruptcy.
On analyst watch lists are US Airways and United, which are trying to merge. Mesa Airlines, once the strongest of the regional carriers, is short on cash, and Delta Airlines is threatening to cancel a Mesa contract to provide regional flights for the big carrier.
